There’s nothing quite like autumn in the Adirondacks — the brilliant reds, vibrant oranges and pulsating yellows. And that’s just the construction barrels, road cones and flashing signs warning people to find someplace other than the shoulder of Rt. 73 in Keene Valley to park their Subarus.
Welcome to the wilderness — not to be confused with the Scranton/Wilkes Barre stretch of Interstate 81. » Continue Reading.
The Adirondack Chapter of The Nature Conservancy is bringing science and nature together for a one day nature fair at their Keene Valley, New York office. Though a lot of the Nature Conservancy’s hard work is behind the scenes, the August 9 celebration is an opportunity for the staff to showcase their specialties and demonstrate how they continue to work to support communities and nature.
According to Associate Director of Philanthropy Erin Walkow, the idea for a nature fair sounded like the perfect way to connect the public with all the different departments within The Nature Conservancy. » Continue Reading.
The Keene Valley Library Association is seeking volunteers to participate in 35-minute focus groups as part of the planning process for a community history initiative, “Adirondack Community: Capturing, Retaining, and Communicating the Stories of Who We Are.”
Focus groups will be held at the Keene Library on Tuesday, June 26 at 4 and 7 pm and at the Keene Valley Library on Thursday, July 5 at 4 and 7 pm. At these meetings, volunteers will help decide categories to organize stories. Suggestions of family, friends, neighbors, and former residents who may be interested in sharing a three-minute story are also welcome. » Continue Reading.
For the 14th year, Keene Valley’s The Mountaineer is using The Great Adirondack Trail Race to help educate about fragile river ecosystems. Located right on the Ausable River, The Mountaineer’s outdoor specialty store provides all the right equipment for hiking, fly-fishing, skiing, rock climbing, and of course trail running.
According to Assistant Manager Chuck Bruha, all The Mountaineer events are used as community fundraisers, but the Great Adirondack Trail Race has always been earmarked to support the Ausable and Boquet River Associations. » Continue Reading.
The Keene Valley Library Association (KVLA) has been named a 2017 Children’s Book Project Grant Award recipient by the Pilcrow Foundation. This $800 award funds the library’s acquisition of new children’s books.
The Pilcrow Foundation’s Children’s Book Project provides new, quality, hardcover books to rural public libraries. These books will become part of the permanent collection at the Keene Valley Library, which serves the Town of Keene’s 1,105 residents. » Continue Reading.
Guidebook author Russell Dunn’s new guidebook Keene Valley Region Waterfall Guide: The Search for Cool Cascades in the Heart of the Adirondacks (Black Dome Press, 2017), leads the way to more than 100 waterfalls in the High Peaks Region of the Adirondacks, from North Hudson to Keeseville, and from St. Huberts to Lake Placid.
The book includes 145 full-color photographs, three maps, and a foreword by Neil Burdick, editor of Adirondac. » Continue Reading.
Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve will hold a public forum focused on the ten strategies outlined in its recently published guidebook Pathways to a Connected Adirondack Park – Practical Steps to Better Land Use Decisions.
The community forum takes place at 7 pm, September 5, 2017 at the Keene Valley Congregational Church in the church’s Van Santvoord Room off Rt. 73 in Keene Valley. Public participation is encouraged. » Continue Reading.
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has announced a new model for Cycle Adirondacks 2017.
Now in its third year, the August 19th to 25th fully supported road bicycling tour will feature three primary hub communities – Schroon Lake, Keene Valley and Saranac Lake – with two consecutive nights at each. Organizers say the result will be more ride distances and options to pedal as few as three days or as many as six during the week long event.
On days the tour doesn’t move between hub communities, guests will have the ability to choose short or long ride distances. They may also choose to take a day off their bike in favor of other activities, such as hiking, canoeing, browsing shops or restaurants. The Wild Center will be a featured activity on Aug. 24 when the tour stops in nearby Saranac Lake for the third straight year. » Continue Reading.
Keene Valley was, the first time I saw it, jaw-droppingly astounding. All those peaks and ridges, jagged, monumental, stretching high into the sky, more and more dramatic as we drove up from the south.
It was a beautiful day, many years ago, and a friend and I had a vague idea about scaling a mountain or two. Maybe we’d go over The Brothers to Big Slide and down.
Well, we hiked and climbed a long way, but we were greenhorns, rather unprepared, and we never made it all the way around. One of us injured a leg; the other had an unfortunate encounter with a toxic plant. We had to turn around and go back the way we came. » Continue Reading.
I have been making art inspired by the Adirondacks since the early 1980s, shortly after moving to just outside the park in Saratoga Springs. Initially my subject matter arose out of family camping and hiking trips, an invitation from a friend, or just wandering by car or canoe as I looked for a vista or close-up scene with an interesting set of juxtapositions and a compelling light.
More recently I have taken another approach on some painting trips as I look for the locations used by nineteenth century artists who depicted the Adirondacks. When I look at the actual motifs that inspired another generation of artists I have a better understanding of the choices they made to enhance or alter details. And when I paint at their locations I understand how my choices differ from theirs. The explorations are a stimulus to my own creativity in new settings. » Continue Reading.
The Ausable River Association (AsRA) in the final days of an Adirondack Gives campaign to acquire survey equipment essential to restoring the Ausable watershed’s streams and culverts. The Gives website, hosted by the Adirondack Foundation, provides crowdfunding opportunites for Adirondack non-profits. AsRA’s staff hopes to provide pre-design measurements of four priority culverts in the Ausable watershed this October to meet a 2015 construction schedule. » Continue Reading.
In 1896, New York City resident Prestonia Mann purchased an Adirondack estate in Keene and set about to create a summer community based on the 1840s Massachusetts Transcendentalist utopian experiment, Brook Farm. She sent an invitation to her circle of acquaintances – mostly progressive social reformers and educators – describing the place she named Summer Brook in homage to the earlier colony:
It includes a large common hall, a cottage, and about twenty acres of land traversed by a fine trout brook. The region—at the northern end of Keene Valley—is in the noblest part of the great wilderness. The land lies 2,000 feet above the sea, upon a small plateau jutting out from among the foot-hills of Mount Hurricane, in the midst of wild and rugged scenery, commanding a splendid mountain range from Whiteface on the north to Tahawus on the south.
Unfortunately, a hotel upstream, The Willey House, was dumping all of their raw sewage into the same “fine trout brook”, known as Gulf Brook. » Continue Reading.
Having “many talents,” a “stand-out reputation,” and “providing valuable insights” are just a few of the phrases used to describe the recipient of the 24th Award for Excellence in Library Service.
The Northern New York Library Network presented this year’s award to Keene Valley Library Association (KVLA) Director Karen Glass. She was presented with the honor during the NNYLN’s Annual Meeting held at the end of May at the Mirror Lake Inn, Lake Placid. » Continue Reading.
I don’t need to remind you how bad the backcountry skiing has been this year. As of this morning, the Adirondack Ski Touring Council wouldn’t even recommend skiing on the Marcy Dam Truck Trail.
But it has been cold this winter, so I figured the ice climbing must be good. Just over a week ago, in fact, there were ice climbers crawling all over Keene and Keene Valley during the Mountaineer’s annual Mountainfest.
Nevertheless, Don Mellor, author of Blue Lines: An Adirondack Ice Climber’s Guide, says the climbing this winter has been only so-so. » Continue Reading.
How did your garden grow? In Keene, Lake Placid, Saranac Lake, Paul Smiths, Minerva, Bolton Landing, and an increasing number of other Adirondack villages and hamlets residents are coming together to create community gardens. Keene has a very rugged landscape and many residents simply do not have relatively flat and sunny backyards for individual gardens, but the hamlet does own a large flat field where its airport, farmer’s market, and various community festivals are based.
Several years ago under the leadership of Jim Herman and Dave Mason, and with support of the town board, most especially Paul Martin, a plot of land was set aside near the community-owed Holt House, tilled, and laid out to form eight foot by eight foot plots that were made available for individuals to rent for a modest fee while being given the option of renting more than one on a space available basis. » Continue Reading.
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