Keep Debar Pond Forever Wild
Debar Pond one of the most scenic spots in the Adirondack Forest Preserve—and probably a place you haven’t even yet had a chance to see.
EXPLORE! Bailey and Marion Ponds: A Study in Contrasts
EXPLORE! Bailey and Marion Ponds in the Hoffman Notch Wilderness.
Adirondack Road Agency
Are roads in wild places a manufactured crisis? AWA co-founder Bill Ingersoll explores this topic.
All the Places I Have Never Been
Exploring the Adirondacks often leads to unexpected surprises and discoveries.
Paul Schaefer’s Winter Ascent
Automobiles enabled a new generation of suburbanites from the Mohawk and Hudson valley regions to begin visiting the mountains more frequently. Some of these people acquired rustic cabins built by the early homesteaders and converted them into camps. Paul Schaefer, a contractor from Schenectady, was one such person.
The Paint Mine and the Tower
Locals regarded Crane and Huckleberry mountains as places to pick berries—specifically blackberries, raspberries, and huckleberries (blueberries)—as well as a source of paint pigment and other minerals. Outsiders, however, viewed the mountain in terms of its recreational potential. Long before young Julia Oliver began guiding parties up the mountain for a quarter, Crane was a well-known hiking and camping destination.
The Lady of Crane Mountain
Although its summit elevation of 3254 feet falls well short of the Adirondacks’ highest peaks, few mountains present a profile as stunning as Crane Mountain. It rises over 1900 feet above the nearby hamlet of Thurman, with steep, rocky slopes on its southeastern and southwestern faces. Except for Huckleberry Mountain, which huddles nearby like a child following close behind its mother, this peak stands apart from all of its closest neighbors.
Have a Little Faith in the Forest Preserve
….Just over a century ago, there was a public campaign to acquire Mount Marcy – then a privately-owned mountain, like many of the High Peaks – as part of a “Victory Mountain Park,” which was envisioned by its promoters as a pleasure ground for service members returning home from World War I. Although no one refers to the state’s highest summit as Victory Mountain Park today, it is hard to imagine the Forest Preserve being complete without it….
Cuomo’s Divisive Adirondack Legacy
If you travel far enough northeast in Essex County you’ll reach a seemingly un-Adirondack mixture of expansive pastures interrupted by forested hills – a bucolic landscape somewhat more evocative of Vermont or the Catskills rather than the land of French Louie and Old Mountain Phelps. But this is nevertheless one’s first impression of Exit 32. Turning westward onto County Road 12, though, one is presented with a rugged mountain skyline, where the Adirondack bedrock seems ready to burst vertically out of its forested cloak….
