Starting July 1, ADK will resume its popular naturalist-led walks and programs in the Lake Placid area. This includes all-new interpretive walks at Cascade Welcome Center, which will be offered every Saturday at 1pm until mid-August. Walks will meet inside the Center and take approximately one hour. All are free, open to the public, and do not require advanced registration**.
Additionally, ADK will resume its popular summer naturalist series at the Heart Lake Program Center. Guests and visitors are welcome to explore the natural world of the Adirondacks through hands-on activities by attending one or all of the following programs:
Lake Placid, NY — ADK (Adirondack Mountain Club) has been awarded a $80,709 Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP) grant for septic system replacements at the Adirondak Loj.
Hosting the busiest trailhead in New York State, the Adirondak Loj is an important focal point for over 100,000 annual visitors as they come to experience the Heart Lake Program Center and explore the surrounding High Peaks Wilderness. For over 90 years, ADK has provided overnight accommodations, information, and other services at the Loj that have helped create a welcoming experience for visitors to the Adirondack Park.
Lake Placid, NY – Starting July 2, ADK will resume its popular naturalist-led walks and programs in the Lake Placid area. This includes all-new, one-hour interpretive walks at the Cascade Welcome Center, which will be offered every Saturday at 1 pm until mid-August.
Walk participants will meet inside the Cascade Welcome Center. All walks and programs are free, open to the public, and do not require advanced registration.**
Additionally, ADK will resume its popular summer naturalist series at the Heart Lake Program Center.
Guests and visitors are welcome to explore the natural world of the Adirondacks through hands-on activities by attending one or all of the following programs:
Naturalist Guided Walks
Join an ADK Naturalist and learn about the natural history of the Adirondacks. Interpretive walks run at 10 am daily all summer long through mid-August. Meeting place is outside the Adirondak Loj.
On July 15, 1932, two giants of wilderness preservation met on top of Mount Marcy: Bob Marshall and Paul Schaefer. Marshall was partway through a marathon hike that would take him to the summits of thirteen High Peaks. Schaefer was taking photos for a campaign against a proposal to allow cabins in the Forest Preserve.
Schaefer’s account of the chance meeting appears in an appendix to my book Bob Marshall in the Adirondacks, a collection of Marshall’s writings. When told of the cabin proposal and various assaults on the Forest Preserve, Marshall became agitated and paced back and forth on the summit of the state’s highest mountain.
“We simply must band together — all of us who love the wilderness. We must fight together — wherever and whenever wilderness is attacked,” Marshall declared to Schaefer. A few years later, Marshall founded the Wilderness Society with some like-minded colleagues
The Adirondack Mountain Club’s (ADK) High Peaks Information Center (HPIC) is closed through late December for renovations. Parking in the HPIC parking lots will still be available and not effected by these renovations. The flush toilets and shower facilities at the HPIC will not be available during this time period. » Continue Reading.
The Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) offers free programming hosted by their Naturalist Interns each summer. Attendees can experience the natural world of the Adirondacks and hands-on learning through Naturalist led interpretive programs during the month of August.
ADK is offering naturalist walks every Thursday at Henry’s Woods just outside of the village of Lake Placid. Walks start Thursdays at 10 am and are free and open to the public. Meet at the trailhead on Bear Cub Lane and be prepared for a 2 mile walk over varying terrain. » Continue Reading.
A hiker who posted photos on Facebook of a keg party on top of Phelps Mountain over Columbus Day weekend has been ticketed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Raja Bhatt of Queens was ticketed for allegedly taking part in a “day-use group” with more than fifteen people — the legal limit for a hike in the High Peaks Wilderness Area.
Bhatt, who is thirty-two, said he didn’t organize the hike or the keg party.
“I was simply on the summit with some friends, and some friend of a friend brought a keg,” he said. » Continue Reading.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation started dismantling Marcy Dam this week, the first step in its effort to remove the wooden structure over the next five years.
Located in the High Peaks Wilderness, the wooden Marcy Dam has been a popular stopping point for hikers, skiers and snowshoers for decades. It was severely damaged by flooding during Tropical Storm Irene in August 2011. » Continue Reading.
Last year my family attended the ADK Winterfest held at the Adirondack Mountain Club’s Adirondack Loj property and had a blast. We spend quite a bit of time at this “gateway to the Adirondacks,” but thought that ADK Winterfest was the perfect opportunity to introduce a one-stop venue of winter activities to our guests. » Continue Reading.
My family spends a fair bit of time at the Adirondack Mountain Club’s (ADK) Adirondack Loj High Peaks Information Center. With Heart Lake being a popular gateway into the High Peaks, we hike their trails, drop off groups and introduce guests to its range of outdoor activities.
Since the Adirondack Park is a multi-season playground, the ADK Heart Lake Center is offering a free day full of winter opportunities to showcase that the 700-acre Heart Lake property is more than just a parking lot for the High Peaks. In conjunction with the 19th Winter Trails Day, ADK has gathered volunteers and staff to host its first Winterfest on January 11. » Continue Reading.
The Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) summer lecture series at the High Peaks Information Center (HPIC) will focus on the glories of the natural world and serious environmental threats that could greatly alter that world.
The Saturday evening series will include talks on climate change by author Jerry Jenkins and hydraulic fracturing by ADK Executive Director Neil Woodworth; presentations about the Northern Forest Canoe Trail and the backcountry of New Zealand; and even a night of music with the eclectic sounds of Annie and The Hedonists.
Saturday evening lectures at HPIC begin at 8 p.m. All programs are free and open to the public. HPIC is located on ADK’s Heart Lake property on Adirondack Loj Road, about 8 miles south of Lake Placid. » Continue Reading.
The Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) will host a Family Snowshoe Day on Saturday, Feb. 12. Participants will spend the day snowshoeing on the trails of ADK’s Heart Lake Property, just south of Lake Placid at the end of Adirondack Loj Road. The club will provide snowshoes and instruction for a guided hike around their property, as well as sharing bits of natural history including animal tracking and winter ecology. The program will run from 10 a.m. till 3 p.m. The cost is $35 for adults and $12 for children 6-15 years old. Kids under 6 are free. For ADK members, the price is only $30 for adults and $10 for kids. Price includes parking at the Adirondak Loj.
For more information, contact ADK Outdoor Leadership Coordinator Ryan Doyle at (518) 523-3480 Ext. 19 or send him an e-mail at workshops@adk.org. For more information about ADK and its outdoor programs and workshops, visit their website.
The Adirondack Mountain Club, founded in 1922, is the oldest and largest organization dedicated to the protection of New York’s Forest Preserve. ADK is a nonprofit membership organization that helps protect the Forest Preserve, state parks and other wild lands and waters through conservation and advocacy, environmental education and responsible recreation.
One of my favorite winter trips is what one might call “extreme cross-country skiing.” That is, skiing on routes that aren’t generally considered by the cross-country community. Routes you won’t find in Tony Goodwin’s Classic Adirondack Ski Tours.
Some of these routes are long and committing. Others require the use of snowshoes or skins (unless you’re a member of the Ski-To-Die Club, a group of locals who took extreme skiing to a new height by taking wooden cross-country skis in the 1970s down mountain descents that would give most people on modern alpine gear pause). » Continue Reading.
My husband and I were up in the pre-dawn morning with probably half the world to essentially watch a fiery burning of debris enter the atmosphere. To then describe to my child a scientific reason for getting out of bed took a bit of research and a chat with an expert.
In layman’s terms (that is all I’ve got) the Leonid Meteors got their name from their apparent relationship to the constellation Leo. The meteors, some no larger than a speck of dust, derive from the parent comet Tempel-Tuttle. Ernest Tempel (December 1865) and Horace Tuttle (January 1866) individually recognized that the Tempel-Tuttle Comet was a recurring one.
The Tempel-Tuttle Comet takes a little over 33 years to orbit the sun. Each time the comet is closest to the sun it sheds particles that cluster together. Depending on where Earth passes through in the comet’s debris trail depends on the intensity of the meteors. Some years there can be as many as 500 meteors falling per hour. This year is not a “sky is falling” type of meteor year but certainly a way to introduce children to astronomy. The phase of the moon coupled with a clear night is what will make viewing the Leonids a pleasurable experience for all.
President of the Tupper Lake Observatory Mark Staves says, “The Leonid Meteor shower does occur every year but since we will have a new moon on the 18th, moonlight won’t be a factor. Moonlight usually diminishes the effect of the meteors. When the light from the meteor shower competes with the moonlight it is not as spectacular.”
He says, “After midnight start to search for meteors toward the east. As the morning progressives look toward southeast and then about 5:00 a.m. the meteors should be toward the south.”
The Adirondack Loj will be hosting a meteor-searching, s’more-eating campfire this evening at Heart Lake. Even though the early dawn of November 17th was predicted as the peak of the meteor shower the darkened skies coupled with the wide-open mountaintops over Heart Lake will present perfect viewing.
The timing of this event is late for little ones. This free program is hosted by an ADK naturalist and runs from 9:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m. tonight. If you can’t make this event the meteor showers will still be able for viewing from any dark wide-open space through the 20th of this month, lessening in frequency as the moonlight brightens in intensity.
“They (meteors) can be intensive,” Staves says. “It would help children to understand that what they are actually seeing is something as small as a speck of dust but traveling 50 times the speed of sound.”
When something so small hits the atmosphere so fast the heat created causes the sand-sized particles to vaporize Staves summarizes.
As for the Tupper Lake Observatory, board members are in the process of putting together the necessary permit applications to the Adirondack Park Agency.
“We have architectural renderings for a Roll-Off Observatory,” Staves says. “The 24-30’ building will have a gantry roof structure so that the whole roof can come off. All the equipment will be set up there permanently. The roof will roll off completely and have a full view of the night sky. We anticipate breaking ground summer of 2010.”
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