New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Rangers respond to search and rescue incidents in the Adirondacks. Working with other state agencies, local emergency response organizations and volunteer search and rescue groups, Forest Rangers locate and extract lost, injured or distressed people from the Adirondack backcountry.
What follows is a report, prepared by DEC, of recent missions carried out by Forest Rangers in the Adirondacks. » Continue Reading.
The Sacandaga River valley has been used as a transportation and communication corridor since before Europeans arrived. It was a native trail, a military road, and a proposed canal and railroad route. Today it’s home to Route 30. The river is a provider of power and recreation, and a powerful force of nature.
Just after the Civil War, a N.Y. Canal Board report (known as the McElroy Report) noted the damage along the Hudson River caused from annual flooding and suggested reservoirs upstream for flood relief and water power. Proposals were made at that time to dam many of the tributaries of the Upper Hudson, including the Sacandaga, but the New York State Legislature took no action.
In 1874 Farrand N. Benedict and Verplanck Colvin issued the Adirondack Storage Report, detailing areas where storage or containment dams could be constructed to minimizing Hudson River flooding in the spring and retain water for late summer and early fall release and use when it was needed in the communities downriver. » Continue Reading.
Three large-scale composters were installed this summer at Lake Placid Central School, The Wild Center, and Hermon Dekalb Central School (just outside the Adirondack Park), allowing local communities to turn food waste into rich organic material using locally designed and manufactured composting systems.
A model composter that was built near the High Peaks at North Country School Camp Treetops (NCS/CTT) in 2017 has now been replicated at the three additional institutions, allowing schools and communities to process up to 200 pounds of organic matter each day, turning waste into compost in about a month’s time. » Continue Reading.
The historic Hotel Saranac has completed a four-year energy saving project, the downtown landmark is now home to clean energy technologies, energy efficiency upgrades, and an electric vehicle (EV) charging station.
Other upgrades include new high efficiency windows, low flow faucets and air sealing throughout the nearly century-old building. » Continue Reading.
Adirondack Forest Preserve advocates Protect the Adirondacks announced Monday that they plan to appeal one of the July 3rd rulings by the Appellate Division, Third Department, in its lawsuit challenging the tree cutting and terrain alterations for snowmobile trails on the Forest Preserve by state agencies. The State announced last week that it also planned to appeal part of the ruling.
The court issued a mixed decision in July. It ruled that the cutting of over 25,000 trees on the Forest Preserve for wide class II community connector snowmobile trails violated Article 14, Section 1, of the NYS Constitution. At the same time however, the court ruled that the construction practices used to clear, bulldoze and grade these trails did not violate the famous forever wild provision of Article 14.
The New York State Constitution’s Article 14 protects the Adirondack Forest Preserve as “forever wild.” Adirondack Forest Preserve lands form the basis of the Adirondack Park. » Continue Reading.
The 7th annual Carousel-A-Thon has been set for Saturday, August 24th from 10 am to 6 pm in Saranac Lake.
This year’s event will feature free Carousel-A-Thon T-shirts donated by Hyde Fuel Company for the first 100 riders, an obstacle course and slide, games and prizes, facepainting, a 50/50 raffle, carnival food, donuts, coffee and cocoa, watermelon, and rootbeer floats. » Continue Reading.
The 118th NY Volunteer Infantry, the Adirondack Regiment, was formed in 1862 from over 1,000 men from Clinton, Essex and Warren counties. They were present at the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox.
While celebrating and memorializing the Adirondack Regiment, re-enactors are set to demonstrate various Civil War period military and civilian impressions in Lake Luzerne during events September 7-8.
The Adirondack Park Agency is weaker today than at any time in its 48-year history. That the fault rests with the office of Governor Andrew Cuomo is both unfortunate and surprising: unfortunate because the APA was created to protect the Adirondack Park from damaging use and development but is now falling down on the job; surprising because, at the national level, the Governor has become a leader in combating climate change, the greatest environmental threat to our planet in human history. Yet in a critically important way the Governor has neglected the world-class park in his own backyard. » Continue Reading.
The Adirondack Chapter of the Antique and Classic Boat Society’s 46th Annual Lake George Rendezvous has been set for Saturday, August 24th, from 10 am to 4 pm, at the Lake George Village public docks on Beach Road.
On display will be antique and classic contemporary boats from the early 20th century through today. » Continue Reading.
The 4th Annual Adirondack Harvest Festival has been scheduled for Saturday, September 21 at the Essex County Fairgrounds in Westport, from noon to 6 pm, with a pre-festival hike at 10 am.
The Harvest Festival is a regional event celebrating agriculture and the harvest in the Adirondacks and Champlain Valley. » Continue Reading.
A few times a year, I bring groups of people into the woods to search for red-backed salamanders in the damp netherworld that is the forest floor. Last spring, it was 8th graders.
They did their best to follow the cardinal rule of middle school social interaction – thou shalt not appear “uncool” by expressing interest in anything whatsoever that an adult is asking of you – but the salamanders exposed the chinks in their armor. Crouched low over small wooden boards we’d set out to mimic the rotting logs that red-backeds prefer, the students murmured with excitement. » Continue Reading.
In This Perfect Moment
Let us sojourn, amid sentient, sentinel pines.
Let us sit and pass the time, forgetting all care,
Sharing our true natures, and smiling confidences,
Under the shelter of a weathered porch,
In sleepy, soft shade of a sultry, summer second.
Let us talk in this brief, perfect moment,
Amid the chatter of busy squirrels,
And the lulling drone of hummingbirds hovering,
Amid the sound of children running down stone steps
Of Camps of generations, to waiting lakes below.
So many lakes, First, Raquette, Indian, Big Moose, more,
Teardrops of past errant glaciers, all,
And Limekiln reigns regally, clad in grandeur of diamonds
And fern lace. Feel her calm,
As she bathes sandy shores in gentle waves and wake.
Feel her calm,
Let it infuse us, as we sit and pass the time,
With sun peering at us gently over a sea of high peaks,
Bathing us in light,
In this, so perfect, moment.
Big Pond is located a mile from the Big Pond Trailhead Parking Area in the Hoffman Notch Wilderness. Big Pond is great for fishing and is dominated by northern pike, but also contains brown bullhead.
Hikers can choose to hike one mile to the pond or continue down the Big Pond Trail another 4.7 miles to intersect with the Hoffman Notch Trail. » Continue Reading.
The Wilmington Notch Campground and Day Use Area will close early, on September 4th, to install a new well and water system and provide time for repairs and maintenance work before the onset of winter. The nearby Meadowbrook Campground and Day Use Area will remain open until Columbus Day. » Continue Reading.
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