East Mill Flow-Round Pond Trail, part of the Hammond Pond Wild Forest, extends 5.2 miles between Round Pond Trailhead and East Mill Flow Trailhead in the Sharp Bridge Campground. » Continue Reading.
Posts Tagged ‘Hammond Pond Wild Forest’
Featured Cross Country Ski: East Mill Flow-Round Pond Trail, Schroon Lake
State Forest Preserve Use Plans Ignore Climate Change
Noah Shaw, former general counsel for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), contributed to the drafting of New York State’s groundbreaking 2019 climate legislation. This September, he wrote an op-ed in the Adirondack Explorer, “What New York’s Bold Climate Law Means for the Adirondacks.”
The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 “outlines a so-called ‘carbon offset’ program as a counter-weight to the 15 percent of emissions that may remain after all our other emissions-reducing actions are taken,” he wrote. “These will likely come from hard-to-clean-up activities like aviation, agriculture, shipping and heavy industry. New York’s most valuable carbon offset resource, also known as a ‘sink,’ is its forestland. This is good news for the Adirondack Forest Preserve.” » Continue Reading.
Joe Mahay, An Adirondack Park Activist, 1946-2019
Longtime grassroots Adirondack Park environmental activist Joe Mahay died in early August at home with his family. Joe and his wife Naomi Tannen had been living in Florence, Massachusetts, where for the past year and a half Joe had dealt with metastatic cancer and chemotherapy.
Joe was one of the founders of the Residents’ Committee to Protect the Adirondacks and twice served as its Chair, tactfully leading the organization through its formative years and a raucous debate over the future of the Adirondack Park in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Joe had a long career as an administrator at a non-profit agency working with people with developmental disabilities in Essex County and poured his volunteer time for many years into the protection of the Forest Preserve and Adirondack Park.
Questions Surround New Frontier Town Campground Trail System
The new Frontier Town state campground was opened to great fanfare just before the July 4th holiday this year. The campground is now fully developed with campsites, trails, and amenities such as showers, playgrounds, horse stalls, pavilions, and scenic lookouts on the banks of the Schroon River, among other features. Construction of the new Paradox Brewery is well underway.
The Frontier Town Campground is designed to pay homage to the western themes of the old Frontier Town wild west amusement park that was in its heyday in the decades after the Second World War. The amusement park had become dilapidated over the years and the new campground was a State intervention to help restore the site to some form of commercial use. The main gate has a western design and many of the shower and bathroom buildings have western saloon facades. » Continue Reading.
Adirondack Council’s APA Meeting Report
The Adirondack Council has reviewed the agenda for the upcoming May Adirondack Park Agency Board meeting and has made the following comments to the Park Agency: » Continue Reading.
Featured Trail: Belfry Mountain Fire Tower, Moriah
Belfry Mountain Fire Tower, part of the Hammond Pond Wild Forest, extends 0.3 mile and climbs 120 feet on a service road to a fire tower on the 1,820-foot summit. This is considered by many the easiest hike to an Adirondack Fire Tower. » Continue Reading.
Big Plans For The Hammond Pond Wild Forest
The Adirondack Park Agency (APA) is accepting public comment for a proposed amendment to the Hammond Pond Wild Forest and Port Henry Boat Launch Unit Management Plan.
The plan covers nearly 50,000 acres of Wild Forest designated “forever wild” Adirondack Forest Preserve land and includes a segment of the interstate North Country Scenic Trail and a controversial boat launch on Eagle Lake on Route 74 west of Ticonderoga.
Hammond Pond Wild Forest Changes Highlight APA Agenda
The Adirondack Park Agency will hold its monthly meeting at its headquarters in Ray Brook on Thursday, March 14th and Friday March 15th, 2019. Thursday’s meeting will begin at 1 pm and Friday’s session will commence at 9:30 am.
The meeting will feature a presentation on final draft of the Hammond Pond Wild Forest Unit Management Plan and consideration of a public comment period regarding conformance of the plan to the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan. Also a presentation on road salt reduction initiatives around Lake George is on the agenda, and more.
What follows is the agenda issued by the APA: » Continue Reading.
Meeting Tues, Comments Sought on Hammond Pond Wild Forest
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has announced it is seeking public input “to improve recreational opportunities and natural resource protections in the Hammond Pond Wild Forest Management Unit.”
A public meeting will be held at 6 pm on November 13, at the North Hudson Town Hall, 3024 US Route 9, approximately one mile from Exit 29 of the Northway (I-87). The meeting will provide the public with an opportunity to offer input on future recreational uses. » Continue Reading.
Featured Trails: Ensign Pond Road Trailhead, North Hudson
There is a small parking area off Ensign Pond Road (County Route 4) that is the trailhead for Hammond Pond, Bass Lake, Berrymill Flow and Moose Mountain Pond in the Hammond Pond Wild Forest. All four trails are great for hiking, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing. Moose Mountain pond has a lean-to which may be accessed from the Berry Mill Flow Trailhead via the Berry Mill Flow Trail and the Moose Mountain Pond Trail. Moose Mountain Pond and Bass Lake are stocked with brook trout for fishing as well. » Continue Reading.
Frontier Town Campground Moves Forward, Meetings Set
The Adirondack Park Agency has announced that it has deemed DEC’s application complete for the Frontier Town Campground, Equestrian and Day Use Area along the Schroon River in North Hudson. State and local officials have been touting the proposed facility as a “Gateway to the Adirondacks.”
The plan proposes an accessible public campground at the site of the former Frontier Town theme park. The campground would include RV, tent, and equestrian camp sites and facilities, and trails connecting to the snowmobile trails leading to Schroon Lake and Ticonderoga, and a new trail to Newcomb being proposed in the yet unapproved Boreas Ponds Tract Management Plan. The campground is part of the Upper Hudson Recreation Hub Master Plan.
Forget Peak Bagging, Name Baggers See It All
Long-distance hiking, peak bagging, and trail hiking are great ways to experience the out-of-doors, yet they’re also “been there, done that” pursuits for most hikers. More than 10,000 people have hiked the Adirondack Forty-Six, dozens thru-hike the Northville-Placid Trail each year, and adjectives used to describe High Peaks Wilderness Area have changed from pristine and wild to impacted and confining. Taking pride in being the black sheep of the hiking community and loving land where there are few traces of mankind, there is no Pacific Crest Trail in my past, no popular peak bagging list in my future. For me it’s all about pursuing unique forms of recreation that take me through the backdoor of beyond. Thus my latest conception: “name bagging.” » Continue Reading.
North Hudson Gateway: DEC Revising Hammond Pond Wild Forest Plan
UPDATE: The public meeting regarding the Hammond Pond Wild Forest Unit Management Plan scheduled for Tuesday, February 7, 2017, at the North Hudson Town Hall, has been cancelled due to forecasted poor weather and road conditions. The meeting has been rescheduled for 6 pm on Thursday, February 16.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is revising the Unit Management Plan (UMP) for more than 45,500 acres of Forest Preserve lands in the Hammond Pond Wild Forest, including parcels adjacent to the proposed Adirondack Gateway at the former Frontier Town site in North Hudson.
The lands include more than 50 parcels located in the towns of Crown Point, Elizabethtown, Keene, Moriah, North Hudson, Schroon, Ticonderoga and Westport in Essex County. The majority of the Wild Forest is located between Lake Champlain in the east, State Route 74 in the south, the Northway in the west, and State Route 9N in the north. There are some parcels located between the Northway and US Route 9 and around the communities of Keene and Keene Valley, and notable parcels along the east side of Schroon Lake. (Adirondack Atlas Map) » Continue Reading.
Beloved, Photogenic Keene Barn Comes Down
For amateur photographer Nick Palmieri, the structure known as the “Keene barn” was always a welcome sight as he arrived in the High Peaks region.
“I’ve always called it the gateway to the High Peaks,” said Palmieri, who lives in New Jersey and runs the Save the Keene New York Barn Facebook page. “From an artists’ point of view that barn just sits in the perfect spot, just to make the scene perfectly beautiful.” » Continue Reading.
National Scenic Trail Route Approved Through Adirondacks
After 10 years of planning, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has approved the Adirondack Park Trail Plan for the North Country National Scenic Trail (NC-NST), effective October 10.
The plan routes the projected 4,600-mile National Scenic Trail through the middle of the Adirondack Park. The NC-NST traverses the northern tier of the United States between Crown Point State Historic Site on Lake Champlain and Lake Sakakawea State Park on the Missouri River in North Dakota. About 2,700 miles of the trail have been completed so far. Within the Adirondack Park, the trail is expected to be about 158 miles long when complete, between Forestport in Oneida County and Crown Point. » Continue Reading.
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