Innholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2019 i Adirondack Explorer

New York plans to close roadside parking on four more miles of Route 73 to address crowding in the High Peaks this year, from the Rooster Comb trailhead east of Keene Valley to Roaring Brook Falls. The state will also complete a longer, sturdier trail up the popular Cascade Mountain this year, add more privies and trailhead toilets, and expand education and outreach programs to guide hikers to lesser-used trails. Speaking at an Adirondack Park and local government conference in April, state Department of Environmental Conservation Region 5 Director Robert Stegemann said that if all of the above still isn’t enough, a permitting system for hikers might become necessary. “All options will be on the table,” he said. “This problem has been developing for years, and all of a sudden…

Lake George is separated from Lake Champlain by just over two miles of waterfalls on the La Chute River, which tumbles through the one-time mill town of Ticonderoga, a word loosely translated to mean “where the waters meet.” As Town of Hague Deputy Supervisor Steve Ramant notes, you can pull your boat from the waters of Lake Champlain and be ready to launch it into Lake George in the space of about 10 minutes. Despite their proximity, these two bodies of water could not be more different in terms of invasive species. Lake George is a highly decorated model for fending off nonnative aquatic life that puddle-jumps from lake to lake, taking over and altering ecosystems as they go. EARLIER COVERAGEOF INVASIVES But the international Lake Champlain, connected to a…

The Adirondack economy has mostly held its own in comparison to the rest of rural America since New York created the Adirondack Park Agency to regulate land uses, according to a conservation group’s demographic analysis. Answering long-held criticisms that environmental protections have caused park communities to stagnate, Protect the Adirondacks reviewed 40 years of U.S. Census Bureau and other data that show park towns and their 130,000 inhabitants mirror national trends in some economic categories while outperforming most small communities in others. The organization compared the cluster of 62 towns that lie entirely within the 6 million-acre park to 1,347 counties with the same median population density—a swath of rural America spanning nearly two-thirds of the contiguous 48 states but containing just a 15th of the population. The idea was…

In her first summer lifeguarding at a state beach in the southern Adirondacks, Madison MacFarland rescued a 5-year-old boy who got in over his head, and helped retrieve a handful of kayakers and canoeists who overturned in Great Sacandaga Lake. “It was quite an experience,” she said. A student at Sage College this spring, MacFarland intends to return to the lake’s Northampton Beach this summer if everything works out. The Department of Environmental Conservation will need her. Despite publicly promoting the job, which pays more than $13 an hour and with most sites offering free housing, there has been a shortage of DEC lifeguards for the past several years. Nobody’s sure precisely why. State officials said it’s a trend nationally, and the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation…

Michael Hannagan was in high spirits the morning he attempted an aerial trick on the downhill course at Whiteface Mountain. The maneuver would change his life forever, and cost New York millions. It was warm and he was happy to be with his wife Rosiley and 10-year-old daughter Alyssa at the Olympic alpine site in Wilmington. “Singing,” he recalled. “Having a good time.” The Hannagans joined a group of skiing enthusiasts—parents and kids—who had become friends over several months. The group had been meeting at events run by Alyssa’s training organization at the state-run skiing center. On this day, children and parents of students enrolled in the New York Ski Educational Foundation program gathered at Whiteface to celebrate the end of the season with a final group activity. They brought…

I arrive at the base of Whiteface Mountain Ski Area at 6 a.m. on a Saturday in early June. It’s an hour before the start of the Wilmington Whiteface mountain bike race, and it’s already busy. Most competitors are already loading protein bars into their jersey pockets, checking tire pressure, warming up on Route 86. I unload my bike and try to prepare for one of the most challenging mountain bike races in New York. The Wilmington Whiteface is a 100-kilometer (62-mile) race that goes from the base of Whiteface Mountain to Elizabethtown and back. There’s also a 50K option. The race is part of a unique bicycle weekend in the Lake Placid area. The evening before, road bikers take part in the Whiteface Uphill Bike Race, where they compete…

Clear-cutting is not a dirty word Recently a New York State assemblyperson named Deborah Glick, from District 66-Greenwich Village in Manhattan, introduced a bill proposing a change in the Adirondack Park Agency approval process regarding clear-cutting in the Adirondacks. A key component of this bill is that a property owner would be required to get an APA permit on clear-cuts as small as 5 acres. To some, especially those who are not very knowledgeable regarding land management and silviculture, clear-cutting is misunderstood and even considered a bad practice. First, here is the definition of silviculture, “The science of controlling the establishment, growth, composition, health and quality of forests to meet the needs of landowners, wildlife, and to positively impact water resources.” There are a number of different forestry procedures such…

YES Hope Frenette An e-bike is not a moped, scooter or motorcycle. It is a bicycle that can be equipped with a small (maximum 750-watt) electric (quiet) motor that can make pedaling the bike easier, especially up hills. There are three classes of e-bikes: Class 1 (pedal-assist only, maximum output 20 mph); Class 2 (pedal-assist plus a throttle, maximum output 20 mph); and Class 3 (pedal-assist only, maximum output 28 mph). None of these uses fossil fuels or produces emissions. Please note: a regular bicycle can be pedaled faster than 20 mph without a motor. The forest preserve, a collection of state lands in the Adirondacks and Catskills totaling 2.9 million acres, give or take, and protected by Article 14 of the New York Constitution, was created to strike a…

During an afternoon lunch in March at the Adirondack Mountain Coffee Café in Upper Jay with Ruth Kuhfahl, there is hardly a face in the place she doesn’t recognize, though, she tells me, at 95 she often has to say to some, “Now, help me remember where our paths have crossed.” She knows the table of eight women celebrating a birthday a few steps away. She stops the waitress to ask her about her son. A friend from church stops by and says she’ll be making muffins Sunday. Even the one woman Ruth doesn’t end up knowing, she calls over to say hello because she reminds her of someone she does know. “It’s hard when you’re a people person,” Kuhfahl says. “You’ve got to talk to everyone.” Ruth Kuhfahl is…

Hikers will have to take a shuttle to one of the main trailheads in the eastern High Peaks Wilderness this spring and summer due to construction on a nearby bridge. The Garden parking lot in Keene Valley will close to motor vehicles because Johns Brook Bridge is slated to be replaced. Work on the bridge will begin this spring and continue until late summer. The current bridge is in such poor shape that plow trucks, fire trucks and ambulances cannot use it, according to the town of Keene. Hikers use the Garden parking lot to access trails to several popular mountains, including The Brothers and Big Slide Mountain. One trail goes to Johns Brook Valley, where the Adirondack Mountain Club has a lodge for hikers. They will need to park…

To a canoeist or kayaker, it sounded too good to be true. And it was. For decades, I had been driving past the Cedar River where it crosses Route 28 in Indian Lake. Like all paddlers, I would crane my neck each time, fantasizing about a trip down the inviting stream. For 100 years, a day trip on the Cedar was impractical without permission from the hunting and fishing club that controlled the take-out point. Then, in 2013, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that new lands added to the Adirondack Forest Preserve would make the Cedar River and its confluence with the Hudson River available. “I encourage everyone to come explore the many outdoor recreational activities that this breathtaking area has to offer,” the governor said in a news release. MORE…

New testing shows that more Adirondack wells are contaminated by unhealthful levels of road salt. The Adirondack Watershed Institute at Paul Smith’s College collected data showing that two-thirds of the wells it tested downslope from state roads were polluted by sodium beyond the federally recommended health limit of 20 parts per million. State crews spread salt to de-ice the roads, and it ultimately spills into nearby streams and leeches into the groundwater. The data confirm and expand on what the institute reported last year, when it found that more than half of a smaller sampling of downslope wells exceeded the threshold. According to the institute, its recent sampling of nearly 500 wells throughout the Adirondack Park showed that 64 percent of those that were downslope of heavily salted state roads…

Michael Hannagan isn’t supposed to be breathing on his own, but he is. Medical professionals told him that because of the spinal cord injuries he received in 2013, he would be hooked to a ventilator for the rest of his life. But Hannagan insisted that he would build up his breathing muscles, and he did, said Benjamin Jensen, a director of The Michael Hannagan Foundation. The foundation, Jensen said, is serving as a platform for Hannagan to perform another remarkable feat. The foundation is setting out to gather donations, perhaps $1 million or more, and put them to use to purchase equipment, pay for staff, and cover bills of researchers exploring ways to help quadriplegics such as Hannagan. “He has a perseverance of character that is something to be reckoned…

The Adirondack Scenic Railroad still wants to restore service all the way to the High Peaks region. Its top officers maintain they could help solve traffic and parking problems in the increasingly crowded area. “On some of the summer popular days, the crush of cars—if you go up there you know this—it can be brutal,” said Bill Branson, president of the Adirondack Railway Preservation Society, which operates the railroad from April through November. “It doesn’t need to be that way. I mean the train won’t answer all the questions, but the train could answer some of them.” The railroaders would like to see an Adirondack railroading renaissance from the restored Utica station all the way to Saranac Lake or even Lake Placid, noting they have room for canoes, trail bikes…

The story of our use of wild places is becoming as complex as navigating Cascade Pass on a nice weekend, with cars parked on the shoulder, cyclists zipping down the hill, hikers playing “Frogger” with oncoming traffic, and motorists distracted by the jaw-dropping beauty of the roadside lakes. A wild experience, for sure, but maybe not the flavor of wildness we look for in the Adirondacks. Once parked, we might find crowded trailheads and toilet paper flowers blooming in the forest. This hardly seems like the experience we’re promised in advertisements. When we talk about issues such as high visitor use and environmental degradation, it’s easy to focus on the negative. Instead of complaining and placing blame, though, it’s time to do something proactive. Our awareness of environmental and social…

People frequently ask me where they can see a particular species of bird, and when a fellow birder asked me what species people had asked me about most often, I answered, immediately: “Indigo bunting, hands down, nothing else even comes close.” On an all-day field trip to the Champlain Valley for the Paul Smith’s Great Adirondack Birding Celebration, the student intern who drove the van we traveled in pulled me aside and told me he had no interest in birds, none, so I shouldn’t bother worrying about making sure he sees anything. Just before lunch we stopped in Keene at Cemetery Lane, which has a large grassy field on one side of it and a marsh on the other. We saw more than 15 species of birds, from yellow warblers…

1. PETE NELSON, for his work on the Adirondack Diversity Initiative. 2. BRENDAN WILTSE, for bringing young people into the environmental discussion. 3. JEN KRETSER, for her work on the Wild Center's Youth Climate Program. 4. DAVE FADDEN, for his work as an educator telling stories of the people of the Six Nations. 5. WENDY HALL, for her work rehabilitating animals at Adirondack Wildlife Refuge. 6. KATHLEEN SUOZZO, for her work as an environmental engineer in the Park. 7. DEBORAH ANDERSEN, for giving Bolton students a solid foundation. 8. CHRISTINECAMPEAU, for her work managing school programs and at Adirondack Experience. 9. JOHN VAN ALSTINE, for his sculpting in steel and stone, contrasting natural and industrial worlds. 10. CAROLINE WELSH, for her work as an art historian and Adirondack art expert.…

You don’t have to tell the guys at Crown Point that Adirondack lakes are changing. It’s apparent in the lack of ice-fishing shanties out on Lake Champlain, where once they formed seasonal villages filled with people angling for comfort. Now those shacks are gone—partly because invasive predators have pushed the crowd-pleasing smelt deeper, and partly because the ice is less dependable for those who still chase perch there. Now a few of them drag sleds and sit on buckets when conditions are right. “We used to drive to Westport up the lake to fish,” longtime bait shop owner Norm St. Pierre said. Drive trucks on ice from the Crown Point peninsula, that is—across Bulwagga Bay and more than 10 miles up the New York lakeshore. That, like the perch parties,…

An angler’s greatest asset is patience, or so we have been told. But this is a lie. Show me a patient fisherman and I will show you a fisherman who by definition isn’t catching any fish. If bass fishermen were patient, why would they need to strap hundreds of horsepower to a slim slab of fiberglass and go rocketing off to a different part of the lake after just two unsuccessful casts? And in the Adirondacks, no one is more antsy than an angler in that ghastly dead time of the year when the calendar says it’s spring but it’s really not, and the streams are running too high from snowmelt and the mountain’s legendary trout ponds and lakes remain entombed in ice. Pike season is over, the state has…

The Adirondack Park Agency has shelved plans for an update to its renewable energy guidelines after determining that its existing provisions are adequate, at least for the time being. The agency said it would continue to support green energy and would evaluate projects based on existing rules. In an emailed statement, the APA said, “The Agency determined that the policy updates were not needed to meet our goal to integrate the wise use of renewable energy resources and implementation of energy conservation measures to help contribute to the reduction of global atmospheric carbon levels and climate change.” MORE PHOTOS But the issue seemed to have taken on greater urgency last fall, when APA staff advised commissioners that new state energy targets would likely increase the number of solar and wind…

During the busy hiking season—when cars spill out of crowded parking areas to line the shoulders of Route 73 near Cascade and Giant trailheads, Route 3 at the Ampersand trail, the Garden parking lot and even Route 30 at Coney Mountain—what is true about the Adirondack Park becomes even more obvious: about the only way to get around here is still in your own car. The park covers more than 9,000 square miles and the distance between our rural communities can be as much as 30 miles. Public transportation is available in a few places where the population warrants it, and some counties’ systems are connected, but not all. With an estimated 7 million to 10 million visitors a year, that’s a lot of driving, gas (and gas money), parking…

The Grass River—or Grasse, as most now spell it—is one of the most beautiful rivers in the northwest Adirondacks, though few know it well. That may change now that the New York Department of Environmental Conservation has issued management plans for the 288-square-mile Grass River Management Unit. As one who’s been lucky enough to explore this river drainage for a half century, I feel we’re at a turning point on this land. For about 20 years, conservation easements have allowed timber companies to cut trees and their taxes. In exchange, New York State gains public access for much of the year and the land is kept free from development. Some hunting clubs who have leased the lands for over a century have maintained hunting rights and exclusive access. Others have…