Monday, August 10, 2020

Exploring forgotten lands: The Sable Highlands

While crowds of people continue to show up at High Peak trailheads between St. Huberts and Lake Placid, there are still plenty of wild places in the Adirondacks where you can spend time and possibly not even see another person.

Just the other day, I took a quick paddle on Grass Pond in the Sable Highlands, located near Loon Lake in the northern Adirondacks, and didn’t see another soul.

Earlier in the year, I took a bike ride and hike with former Explorer editor Phil Brown on the same easement property and also didn’t see anyone else recreating. That day, Phil and I left from a parking area at Fishhole Pond. We were exploring the property because Phil was working on a story about a bike route and trail that had been planned by the state but had never been implemented.

Phil spent a good amount his time exploring the Sable Highlands easement lands this spring and summer. What he found is that many of the recreation routes that the state had been planning to develop were never completed.

In recent weeks we’ve started publishing Phil’s explorations of the Sable Highlands easement lands on our website.

You can read the pieces he’s published already by following the links here. One is about a planned bike route near Fishhole Pond and the other is about a trail up Norton Peak near Standish that was never built.

Related Stories


Mike Lynch is a staff writer and photographer for the nonprofit Adirondack Explorer, the regional bimonthly news magazine with a focus on outdoor recreation and environmental issues. Mike’s favorite outdoor activities include paddling, hiking, fishing and backcountry skiing. In 2011, he paddled the 740-mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail from Old Forge to Fort Kent, Maine. From 2007 until 2014, Mike worked as an outdoors writer and photographer for the Adirondack Daily Enterprise in Saranac Lake. Mike welcomes story ideas and can be reached at mike@adirondackexplorer.org.




One Response

  1. Living at Loon Lake, I spend significant time in the Sable Highlands and the Kushaqua Tract. Other than the trail up Loon Lake Mountain, I seldom see anyone else out and about on these lands. Lots of sign of Moose.

Wait! Before you go:

Catch up on all your Adirondack
news, delivered weekly to your inbox