Adirondacks – (May 11, 2023) – The 2023 Great Adirondack Garage Sale will take place on Memorial Day weekend, May 26 – 28, 2023, within the Adirondack region of upstate New York. The event takes place throughout communities along a 200-mile trail, along NYS routes 28, 30 and 3.
The annual event has become a popular kick-off to the summer season, with residents and visitors embracing the opportunity to buy and sell unique household items, gently-used home furnishings, and quirky treasures.
Newcomb, NY – The Adirondack Interpretive Center (AIC) has recently announced a lineup of events to kick off the Spring season including a series of free “mud season movies,” early migrant bird walks, and a one-day introduction to fly fishing workshop. The 2023 mud season movies will be shown every Saturday in April at 1:30 p.m. at the Adirondack Interpretive Center, Newcomb Campus. (More information on the mud season movies in the image above.) The film series is sponsored by the Adirondack Park Institute.
Here’s a glimpse of what is planned for SUNY-ESF’s Adirondack Interpretive Center (AIC) for the remainder of September, heading into October. Programs include a variety of walks, hikes, and a Halloween-themed educational program called Skull Skills. Pre-registration is required for all programs.
Saturday, September 10th – 9:30 to 11:00 am Black Bear Woods Walk Come along for an easy guided walk as we learn about black bears in the Adirondacks. We’ll look for signs of bears on our trails, discuss the implications of a changing climate on black bears, and learn about bear safety. Bring your trail shoes and your best bear stories. click here to register
Fairly typical weather for the Adirondacks with warm days and cool nights with fog over the lakes brought about by the cool air over the warmer lake surface. We again had a couple rainy periods, so I didn’t have to water the garden or the flower beds. The flowers have been going like gang busters, lots of greenery and many blooms. The bee balm is in full flower, and I was just looking out the window before dark and there were six hummers searching out each red bloom and fighting over the next one.
Great Grand Daughter Milly Jade Peterson has been the hit of every party for our family out in the Rochester area. As the photo [below] will show, she is already a real show off. Speaking of hummers, Ted Hicks and I plan on being at Stillwater banding hummers on Saturday, August 6, but that hasn’t been set in stone yet. We usually get there about 7:30 a.m. and band until about 11 a.m., depending on how many birds are around. Right now, they are about at their peak number-wise with the little ones out of the nest, and males still hanging on territory.
The Adirondack Community Recreation Alliance (ACRA) has awarded 12 grants to help communities create new biking and skiing trails, improve ice skating rinks, enhance terrain parks, and more.
The grant program is part of the Alliance’s work to enhance and develop recreation assets, increase region-wide stewardship, and advance policies to secure long-lasting community and economic benefits for Adirondack towns and villages.
The Northern Forest Center facilitates and participates in the Alliance and raised funds for this round of grants. The Alliance awarded close to $40,000 to help communities from Caroga to Vermontville improve recreational assets for residents.
Grants include funding to strengthen ice skating facilities and resources in Newcomb, Inlet, Ticonderoga and Elizabethtown, support pump tracks in Vermontville and Saranac Lake, create new or expanded mountain biking in Caroga, Chestertown and North Creek, enhance hiking opportunities in Long Lake, expand the terrain park at Mount Pisgah in Saranac Lake, and strengthen a volunteer network dedicated to backcountry avalanche safety education.
ESF Adirondack Interpretive Center (AIC) staff are pleased to announce Woods Walks every Saturday during the summer season from June 18 through August 13.
The series of nature walks will kick off this Saturday, June 18 with the first walk dedicated to the memory of ESF Adirondack Interpretive Center friend Elaine Schwartz.
This walk and talk will be focused on award-winning poet Mary Oliver. Oliver’s poetry, inspired by nature, was rooted in her frequent walks in the woods. The Elaine Schwartz Memorial WoodsWalk will begin at 10 a.m. Click here to register via email
Celebration for long-awaited trailhead and visitor amenity improvements draws community and local officials.
The Open Space Institute (OSI) has announced details of the grand opening celebration and ribbon cutting at its new Upper Works Trailhead at the Adirondac Upper Works. (Click here to see a story about the project in Adirondack Explorer) The event will celebrate recent upgrades OSI has made to the site, including the parking area expansion and relocation, stabilization of the McIntyre Blast Furnace, and improved visitor access to the southern High Peaks. The event will take place adjacent to the historic MacNaughton Cottage. Limited event parking will be available at the new, Upper Works trailhead and parking area and along the road. Following the speakers, there will be a ribbon cutting ceremony.
This is a story that should have had a happy ending.
A story of five Adirondack towns working with state government and environmental non-profits on an agreement to expand the taxpayer-owned Forest Preserve, improve public recreation and bring new economic growth to the area.
The Community Connector Trails agreement would have helped turn the page on decades of Adirondack Region job losses brought on by industry disinvestment and Forest Preserve expansion, and established a model for the type of common-sense, compromise solutions needed for many problems confronting the Adirondack Park.
Instead, it’s a sad story of misplaced trust and lost opportunity, ending with the towns and the people who live there getting left out in the cold.
A look at some of the events coming up at the Adirondack Interpretive Center in Newcomb. All events are free unless otherwise noted.
Wildlife Wednesdays
July 21st – Owls of the Adirondacks Did you know that the Adirondack Park is home to seven different species of owl? Explore their natural history and habitats as we walk along the AIC trail system.
The Town of Newcomb has announced the start of a winter photo contest. Looking for your best Newcomb winter photos of: landscapes, wildlife, landmarks, and activities (limit of three entries in jpeg format).
Deadline: March 1st, 2021, by 5:00 p.m.
Include the following information: Name, address, phone, email, location where photo was taken, and title. Photos can be submitted by email to: contest@newcombny.com and not to exceed 10MB.
Photos will become property of Town of Newcomb and may be used for publicity purposes including social media, calendars, etc. More about Newcomb at newcombny.com.
Last week we had a couple of Lake George-area stories, in case you missed them.
One was about Dog Beach, a public area next to the state’s Million Dollar Beach at the southern end of the lake. If you’ve walked by there lately, you may have noticed the construction equipment. Dog Beach is getting turned into a stormwater filtration project. Some of it will go back to open, public space, but it will be smaller than before. The goal is to filter out nutrients, bacteria and sediment.
We also saw some benthic mats, once used to control Eurasian watermilfoil, removed from the lake. David Wick, director of the Lake George Park Commission, said this was the way the commission used to treat dense beds of milfoil, but these mats are now just trash sitting on the lake bottom. Divers helped remove them last month.
Newcomb’s annual Teddy Roosevelt Weekend, dubbed “TR Weekend” will be a virtual event with Joe Wiegand, aka the man himself — Theodore Roosevelt, streaming video from Medora, North Dakota, his home base.
To take place via Zoom. Register ahead of time to receive the meeting information.
Friday 9/11/20 at 7pm: TR and Inez Milholland banter over giving women the right to vote. Email for Zoom connection: TRfridaynight@gmail.com
Saturday 9/12/20 at 11am: TR to discuss TR as a young man in the ADKs and how he ends up in the Bad Lands. Email for Zoom connection: TRsaturdaymorning@gmail.com
SUNY-ESF is seeking trail crew as they expand their existing trail network at the Newcomb Campus, including plans to add more than two miles of new trails at the Adirondack Interpretive Center (AIC), as well as rehabilitating the popular Goodnow Mountain trail.
This expansion is the first since the AIC was opened in 1990. » Continue Reading.
While the grounds of Great Camp Santanoni in Newcomb are open to visitors 365 days a year, the buildings are not typically open to the public during winter months.
The exception are designated Winter Weekends, when the rustic historic site is staffed with guides, and snowshoes are provided at the gate for the ten-mile round trip.
Three Winter Weekend events have been set this year: Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, January 18-20; Presidents’ Day holiday weekend, February 15-17; and the weekend of March 14 and 15.
Newcomb’s Camp Santanoni hosts three winter weekends each year, which provide an opportunity for people to have access to the Great Camp buildings that are not open year-round. The first winter weekend is January 18-20, with the next two set for February 15-17, March 14-15.
Don’t forget the Great Camp Santanoni is always open to the public, but these Winter Weekends provide public access to the interior of the remaining historic buildings on the property as well as historical educational information. » Continue Reading.
Loon banding is a lot like fishing…you don’t get them all
Fairly typical weather for the Adirondacks with warm days and cool nights with fog over the lakes brought about by the cool air over the warmer lake surface. We again had a couple rainy periods, so I didn’t have to water the garden or the flower beds. The flowers have been going like gang busters, lots of greenery and many blooms. The bee balm is in full flower, and I was just looking out the window before dark and there were six hummers searching out each red bloom and fighting over the next one.
Great Grand Daughter Milly Jade Peterson has been the hit of every party for our family out in the Rochester area. As the photo [below] will show, she is already a real show off. Speaking of hummers, Ted Hicks and I plan on being at Stillwater banding hummers on Saturday, August 6, but that hasn’t been set in stone yet. We usually get there about 7:30 a.m. and band until about 11 a.m., depending on how many birds are around. Right now, they are about at their peak number-wise with the little ones out of the nest, and males still hanging on territory.
» Continue Reading.