There were very few pops of bright color on Blue Mountain Lake last week now that we are past peak leaf season. Zach Matson and I were out there last Wednesday listening to the Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program’s speakers on invasive species. We are working on stories in our next issue of the magazine about some of the different forest pests and what is being done about them.

In case you missed it, Mike Lynch had a story up online today about beech leaf disease, another kind of threat to trees that was spotted this summer in the southwestern Adirondacks. Read that story here.

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These 90-degree days are making me miss snow. I posted a short video you can watch here of our hike up Blue Mountain in the winter, and some on Twitter agreed with me. I know by March I will be eager for spring birdsong and blossoms. But even those things are changing. In my backyard I’m noticing the impacts of our warming temperatures. My tomatoes are not changing from green to red, which Cornell Cooperative Extension says could be because of the high heat. “When temperatures exceed 85 to 90 F, the ripening process slows significantly or even stops. At these temperatures, lycopene and carotene, pigments responsible for giving the fruit their typical orange to red appearance cannot be produced. As a result, the fruit can stay in a mature green phase for quite some time,” the article states. Is anyone else having this trouble?

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Thanks very much to those who came out to our panel discussion at the Adirondack Mountain Club’s new visitor center last week. As part of our ongoing solutions reporting, the event focused on issues around High Peaks use. We had a great team of experts to talk about the importance of data collection for making management decisions and the importance of visitor centers, stewards and forest rangers for educating the public. Our audience had some wonderful insight and questions, too.

If you weren’t able to make it out, but are interested in watching, you can check out our video below.

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Newly passed gun legislation has Democrats and Republicans at odds over what it could mean for Adirondack Park residents and visitors. I spoke with Environmental Conservation Officer Matt Krug about his key takeaways and how it may be enforced in the park. Since that story, state Sen. Dan Stec, R-Queensbury and state Assembly Matt Simpson, R-Horicon, are introducing legislation that would exempt the Adirondacks and Catskills. The Legislature’s extraordinary session is over, so we’ll have to see when and if lawmakers will take up the amendment.

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