Wanika Falls via the Northville-Placid Trail is a 13.9-mile moderately trafficked out-and-back trail.
The trail begins at the Northville-Placid trailhead on Averyville Road in Lake Placid. The trail gains a total of 1,400 feet in elevation over the nearly seven-mile hike to the falls of the Chubb River. » Continue Reading.
The new 2.2-mile spur trail connecting the 134-mile Northville-Placid Trail (NPT) to the hamlet of Long Lake in Hamilton County has officially opened.
The spur trail provides ease of access to food, supplies, and lodging for backpackers through-hiking the NPT and is hoped to enhance the local economy. » Continue Reading.
ADK has released the fifth edition of its Adirondack Mountain Club Northville-Placid Trail in time for the Northville-Placid Trail’s 95th anniversary. The newest edition in ADK’s Forest Preserve Series of Adirondack and Catskill guides, this volume marks the relaunch of the series.
Edited by Jeff and Donna Case of Mattydale, Onondaga County, the volume has been revised and redesigned, including a return to a smaller, more convenient size. When they conclude this year’s trip on the NPT in May, the authors will have hiked the trail twenty-eight times.
The new edition’s arrival is a celebration of another sort as well: the text includes a detailed description of the long-awaited reroute of the Northville-Placid Trail’s (NPT’s) southern approach completed in 2015 that eliminated about 10 miles of road walking. Originally 132 miles long, reroutes and trail changes have extended the NPT to 138.6 miles. » Continue Reading.
The Adirondack Community-based Trails and Lodging System Tuesday advanced its “demonstration project” to build a spur trail in the Town of Long Lake offering hikers on the Northville Placid Trail the opportunity to get off the trail and go into the town for a hot shower, meal, and place to sleep for the night. Leaders of the project visited the potential site.
They hope to have the trail finished by fall and ready for use next year. » Continue Reading.
The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has released Draft Amendments for the Blue Mountain Wild Forest Unit Management Plan (UMP) and the Siamese Ponds Wilderness and Jessup River Wild Forest UMPs. DEC and the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) are reviewing the two Draft Amendments concurrently and holding a combined, joint public comment period on the proposals in the Draft Amendments.
According to DEC : “These UMP amendments propose projects that will provide safe access to communications facilities, protect important wildlife habitat, and improve the outdoor recreation experience within all three units. These amendments also propose new trails that connect the Forest Preserve to local communities, as recommended by three regional trail plans recently completed by DEC and its partners: North Country National Scenic Trail – Adirondack Park Trail Plan; Conceptual Plan for a Hut-to-Hut Destination-based Trail System for the Five Towns of Long Lake, Newcomb, Indian Lake, Minerva, and North Hudson; and Great South Woods Complex Planning Strategy and Recommendations.” » Continue Reading.
The Adirondacks and hikers of the Northville-Placid Trail lost a friend when John Washburn passed away in September.
John and his wife, Jane, ran the Trailhead Lodge in Benson in the southern Adirondacks, near where the NP enters the Silver Lake Wilderness. Many a hiker spent the night there before embarking on the 120-mile trek to Lake Placid.
I used to speak with John fairly often as he wrote a number of articles for the Adirondack Explorer and sometimes provided us news tips. I also came to know his son, Michael, when he headed the Residents’ Committee to Protect the Adirondacks.
I didn’t know much about John’s history other than that he used to teach. His obituary fills in some of the details. He served in the Air Force during the Korean War and was discharged in 1964 as a first lieutenant. He taught in the Gloversville School District from 1968 to 1987. After retirement, he founded the Search Team 5-1, took part in many searches for lost hikers, and wrote a manual for rescuers titled Point Last Seen. He also wrote a book on Irish history. He and his wife ran the Trailhead Lodge from 1989 to 2011.
Newly opened trail reroutes on the Northville-Placid Trail (NPT) now eliminate many miles of road walking.
The most recent section of reroute, completed this summer, replaces 7.6 miles of walking along State Route 30 and the Benson Road in the towns of Northampton, Fulton County and Benson, Hamilton County with an 8.6-mile trail through a tract of the Shaker Mountain Wild Forest. A bridge over Stoney Creek has not yet been built so a roughly 90-foot ford is necessary, which may not be passable during high water.
The Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK), in cooperation with the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), established the Adopt-A-Lean-To Program in April 1985. The first appeal for volunteer stewards offered eight lean-tos, expanded to 16 in 1986 and to 24 in 1987. Ten years later, 136 lean-tos had been adopted.
Today, the program comprises of 175 structures found all over the Adirondack Park and cared for by no less than 240 individuals. Between 1921 and 1937, the first wave of lean-tos appeared on the Northville-Placid Trail (N-P Trail) and Adirondack High Peaks trails. During the 1950s and 1960s a second wave of structures and replacements were installed. » Continue Reading.
Protect the Adirondacks is urging the state to create a 12,850-acre West Stony Creek Wilderness Area in the southern Adirondacks.
The Wilderness Area would combine 3,925 acres of former Finch, Pruyn timberlands that the state recently purchased from the Nature Conservancy and 8,925 acres of existing Forest Preserve in the Shaker Mountain Wild Forest.
“The West Stony Creek area is rugged terrain dominated by low ridges and mountains and the meandering West Stony Creek and associated wetlands. The Forest Preserve sections have old-growth forest communities,” Protect Chairman Chuck Clusen said in a news release today.
Protect also says a Wilderness classification would offer stronger protection for a six-mile stretch of West Stony Creek that is designated a Scenic River within the state’s Wild, Scenic, and Recreational Rivers System.
On the first Saturday of June the American Hiking Society celebrates National Trails Day. Now commemorating its 22nd year, National Trails Day continues to bring attention to the extensive network of outdoor trails across the Unites States as well as the wide array of activities those trails provide.
This year the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) has designated the historic Northville-Placid Trail (NPT) trail as its main volunteer project this Saturday, June 7. Paired with the Northville Merchants Association and Fulton Montgomery Regional Chamber, ADK will have over 100 volunteers installing rock steps, retaining walls and rerouting the Northville section to a new archway at Northville’s Waterfront Park.
According to Northville Merchant Association’s President Michael Intrabartola this year’s National Trails Day will kick off a two-day festival celebrating 90 years on the NPT. The 133-mile trail that stretches between the towns of Northville and Lake Placid was started in 1922 and the first project taken on by the then fledgling Adirondack Mountain Club. » Continue Reading.
A reader of my recent blog post “A Proposal For Rail AND Trail” asked the question, “Is it feasible to connect the Northville-Lake Placid Trail to a trail alongside the railroad tracks?”
I took a look at the map and sure enough it would be quite easy to extend the Northville-Lake Placid Trail 1.25 miles across the Averyville Road through the Saranac Lake Wild Forest and have it join the rail corridor. » Continue Reading.
The Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) is celebrating the 90th anniversary of the completion of the Northville-Placid Trail (N-P Trail) this year. The N-P Trail, originally called The Long Trail is a north-south foot path that traverses through the heart of the Adirondacks from Northville to Lake Placid. This 135-mile, long distance hiking trail has captured the hearts of many throughout the years.
The N-P Trail was the first major project that ADK sponsored after the organization’s formation in 1922. One of the objectives as a newly formed organization was “to open, develop, extend and maintain trails for walkers and mountain climbers in the Adirondack Mountains,” as stated in the certificate of incorporation. What better way to do that than to build a trail that runs the length of the Adirondacks? Why pick Northville to Lake Placid though? Why not Lake George to Keene Valley? » Continue Reading.
The Northville-Placid Trail is getting a face-lift. The initial 10-mile stretch that started at the west end of the bridge over the Sacandaga River along State Route 30 is no more, or at least soon will be. Instead, the famous trail will soon officially start in the village of Northville and mostly stick to State Forest Preserve for the first ten miles all the way to Upper Benson.
This is not the only recent change for the famous trail. Combined with other alterations over the last few years, the singular long trail of the Adirondacks is going through a transition, giving it a whole new look; one that makes it wilder and more remote.
At least as far as I am concerned.
» Continue Reading.
Smart hikers know what to do when they come upon a black bear in the woods: wave your arms, yell, and stand your ground. Yet that didn’t work for Amy Stafford.
Stafford, who is twenty-two, was forced to stab a bear in the face when it charged her in the woods on the Northville-Placid Trail.
“The whole time I kept thinking, if this bear wanted me, it could have me in a heartbeat. I considered throwing things at it, running at it, but I was afraid it would provoke aggression. I didn’t react until I had to,” said Stafford, who graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology last spring and is a member of the Army Reserves. » Continue Reading.
In the Adirondacks, all forms of wildlife have a natural fear of humans. This is the primary reason why hikers, campers, and individuals sitting on their back porch don’t generally see many creatures, despite being outside for long periods of time.
Should a healthy animal detect the presence of a person, it inevitably hides or immediately flees in order to avoid being seen. » Continue Reading.
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