High Peaks Wilderness – Adirondack Wilderness Advocates

AWA’s first order of business in serving on the High Peaks Advisory Group (HPAG) was to ensure that protection of the Wilderness was a paramount and inviolate principle. That was…

Leading with Principles

March 6, 2021

Friday, March 5, 2021 Dear AWA Supporter: Earlier this afternoon, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) released the long-awaited Final Report from the High Peaks Strategic Planning…

A Very Brief History of the High Peaks Wilderness

February 27, 2021

Bill Ingersoll

Knowledge

The human history of the Adirondack High Peaks region is such a voluminous subject matter that it could easily fill an entire book. These mountains have been so scrutinized over…

UPDATE: Development Continues on AWA’s Visitor Use Management App

December 13, 2020

Ari Epstein

Earlier this year, I wrote about a proof of concept app we had started working on to produce better data about visitor activity in the Adirondack Park. The concept was…

Wilderness Drop Zones: A Poor Management Practice

December 4, 2020

Bill Ingersoll

Ha-de-ron-dah Wilderness, High Peaks Wilderness, Lake George Wild Forest, Shaker Mountain Wild Forest, West Canada Lake Wilderness

Maintaining wilderness facilities such as trails, footbridges, and lean-tos is an important responsibility for the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), the agency in charge of managing the forever-wild Adirondack…

Protecting the Wilderness with Positive Reinforcement

November 8, 2020

High Peaks Wilderness, Permits

Knowledge, Protection

The busy season in the Adirondacks is winding down, but with a bang. The Coronavirus pandemic, which depressed visitation for the first part of the summer, has clearly caused a…

Wilderness Visitor Management: There’s an App for That!

March 1, 2020

Ari Epstein

A little over ten years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a lecture Phil Brown delivered about his then-newly published collection of letters and essays by Bob Marshall, one…

AWA Takes an Active Role in High Peaks Visitor Management

February 7, 2020

At Adirondack Wilderness Advocates we refer to our core mission as KEEP: Knowledge, Enjoyment, Expansion and Protection of the Adirondack Park’s wildest places. That goes for the High Peaks Wilderness as much as…

Adirondack Explorer – It’s Debatable: No To Permits

October 29, 2019

Brendan Wiltse

Opinion, Protection

The term “overuse” implies that we have too many people visiting the High Peaks. This term, while convenient and perhaps apt, greatly oversimplifies the problem and solution. Certainly, there is…

On Russell M.L. Carson and Peaks and People of the Adirondacks

October 28, 2018

David Crews

Enjoyment, Knowledge

Boreas Ponds, High Peaks Wilderness

The following are excerpts from the essay, “On Russell M.L. Carson and Peaks and People of the Adirondacks,” published in Wander-Thrush: Lyric Essays of the Adirondacks (Ra Press, 2018) and…

Reasons Not to Open Boreas Ponds to Motorized Access

October 30, 2017

Bill Ingersoll

Expansion