Innehållsförteckning för March/April 2024 från Adirondack Explorer

PARTIES ARRANGE NOVEL FOLLENSBY POND USE BY GWENDOLYN CRAIG AND MIKE LYNCH New York state and The Nature Conservancy reached a “novel” compromise to protect Follensby Pond and open parts of the 14,600-acre property near Tupper Lake to public access. The state announced in February its contract for conservation easements providing recreational access to lands on the western side of the Raquette River, including the Moose Creek watershed and protecting the 970-acre Follensby Pond and limiting its access for scientific, educational and cultural purposes. The state, The Nature Conservancy and several partners made the deal to preserve “a unique natural resource so that all New Yorkers can enjoy this treasured and historic region for generations to come,” said Gov. Kathy Hochul. The Nature Conservancy and the state Department of Environmental…

An Adirondack sign of joy My wife is originally from Lake Luzerne. Every time we return for a visit, my eyes always find the Double H sign along Route 9N, and a sense of warmth comes over me knowing the wondrous joy and happiness that is going on at the Double H (“Destined for this accepting place” January/February). Your article has reinforced in me that the brightness in this world will always outshine the darkness that always attempts to creep in. Adirondack Explorer, you are a charm in your own right: North Country reality; always something to smile about! Thank you for all that you do. Klaus Vetter Eldersburg, MD Informed about fungus This is a great article (“A 100-proof case of whiskey fungus” January/February). I have never heard of…

The Adirondack guideboat reflects its makers and the landscape it was built to navigate. Enthusiasts are still working out the details of technique and the lineage of builders, many of whom produced boats still in use 125 years after they were custom-crafted for a specific lake or section of river. A project to digitize the world’s largest guideboat collection may shed new light on key questions: How and why did the guideboat evolve? How did the styles of builders differ? Did geography influence design? Can unknown builders be identified? The Adirondack Experience’s boat collection, which includes around 85 guideboats plus archives, have expanded and sustained the collective understanding of the Adirondack guideboat. The museum now plans to create 3-D scans of its guideboats, using a method known as photogrammetry…

Shirley Clark needed a friend. “I was in an apartment in Lake Placid,” Clark said. “There was nobody around, and I was very, very lonely. I cried a lot.” One day, she phoned the Essex County Office for the Aging to learn what programs might be available to someone like her—an isolated, older adult in need of activity and companion-ship. That call led to what Clark now describes as a miracle: the arrival of Margie Gallagher. Gallagher visits Clark once a week, and Clark describes her as a “really good friend.” At 90, Clark is blind in one eye and no longer drives. Gallagher, a 65-year-old retired schoolteacher, takes her to do errands and on outings—to the library, to the horse show in Lake Placid, to Lake Flower for milkshakes…

On what started as a normal day, Bob Emery dropped off his 4-year-old daughter at daycare and drove to Cascade Pass to meet Bobby O’Connor and three Northwood School students at an ice-climbing cliff known as Pitchoff Right. A guidebook describes Pitchoff Right as “the single most hacked, chopped, gang-roped piece of ice in the park.” It’s a popular place to practice, given the variety of climbing options and the ease of setting up a top rope. “I probably have done that climb more than any other,” said Emery, 38, a seasoned climber and a math teacher at Northwood, a private school in Lake Placid. This time, however, something went badly wrong. When Emery got to the cliff, O’Connor —the director of the school’s outing club—was part-way up the wall.…

Nearly 200 years ago, elk roamed the Adirondack Park, though historical accounts say hunting by European settlers likely caused the animal’s decline. Today the park isn’t home to any of the giants of the deer family but is positioned above free-roaming herds in the south. With the right connections, conservationists say, many animals, potentially even 600-pound elk, could once again be part of the region’s native diversity. They would be among the species relocating to the park to escape the effects of climate change. Warming temperatures are driving many animals and plants northward and to higher elevations, researchers say. Recent studies show nearly half of the world’s species are on the move because of the changing climate and habitat disruption. Now, scientists want to know where the world’s wildlife will…

In a nondescript storage center in Blue Mountain Lake, a six-foot-tall, pink-tiled stove stands. It’s a remnant of one of the Adirondacks’ great camps, and one of the artifacts held by the Adirondack Experience in storerooms of hundreds of items usually unseen by the public. Each has its own story. This stove was created for Richard Alexander Hudnut. The cosmetics magnate imported the tiles from France in 1905 to outfit his retreat, Foxlair, near North Creek. After Hudnut died, Foxlair faced the rules of the forest preserve. As interpreted at the time, the structure had to be destroyed. Before the state torched the great camp in 1973, Hudnut’s kin disassembled the stove and crated the tiles for storage in a neighbor’s basement. In the early 2000s, the Hudnut descendants donated…

In the depths of an Adirondack winter 267 years ago, a band of French soldiers and Native American forces jumped a scouting party of British-allied rangers west of today’s town of Ticonderoga. With superior numbers and the element of surprise, the French should have made quick work of this skirmish. It was complicated, however, by four feet of snow. The rangers, under the direction of the colorful Robert Rogers, managed to fight to a draw thanks to footwear now a staple of winter hikes. They wore snowshoes. This 1757 dustup became known as the first Battle on Snowshoes. A year later, Rogers cemented his legend. This time, his men were routed in such decisive fashion that the snowshoes became a liability, their rawhide bindings snapping and the footwear flopping like…

We’re not in favor of the proposal Ilive year-round in Old Forge with my family. We operate rental cabins in Inlet and have a camp on Raquette Lake. A single 2000-watt portable generator is our backup power. We would benefit as much as any might from the proposed facility. We also recognize the essential need for energy storage to fight climate change. But this project is not debatable. While backup power is highlighted, its daily function will be to allow its remote operator to buy and sell power for profit on wholesale energy markets. The site is just a few hundred feet from the center of town. It is elevated, steep and rocky, and covered with mature trees; 2.5 acres will be cleared, leveled, fenced and lit; 12 shipping container-size…

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed $233 billion budget is giving taxpayers an idea of what she views as important for the year ahead. Unfortunately, clean water infrastructure, the Adirondack Diversity Initiative, climate research and climate career development—all areas of deep concern in the Adirondack Park—are coming up short on the governor’s list of priorities. READ MORE State legislators now have an opportunity to improve on Hochul’s plan. Between now and the budget’s due date of April 1, when the state’s new fiscal year begins, they have a chance to modify her spending plan. It’s an opportunity to protect our waters and communities, address climate change before it’s too late, and continue good work underway aimed at increasing diversity and making sure all people feel safe and welcome in the Adirondack Park.…

Tired of the invasions, Jay resident Joe Dumoulin built a 7-foot-tall fence to protect his property in Ausable Acres from deer. “I was just so pissed at these deer, always beating me,” he said. "So, I finally won, but it was an extensive effort.” Deer have been visiting the Dumoulins’ property since his family moved there fulltime in 1993. Over time, visits increased in frequency, and the animals became more aggressive in eating shrubs and plants, such as rhododendrons. Dumoulin’s story is common for people who have gardens in the Adirondacks, elsewhere in the state and many parts of the U.S., where deer populations have overlapped with human ones. In the village of Saranac Lake, deer roam year-round, munching on sunflowers, devouring pumpkins off porches at Halloween and snacking on…

Aonce-in-a-lifetime celestial event will envelope the Adirondacks in darkness on April 8. Now’s a good time to ponder endogenous biological clocks and how birds might react to their world suddenly seeming like night in mid-afternoon. Scientists are particularly interested in this total solar eclipse since it will occur during early spring bird migration. MORE ON THE ECLIPSE Circadian rhythm is the 24-hour internal clock that regulates behavior for plants, animals, fungi and bacteria, allowing organisms to anticipate sunrise or sunset. This evolutionary biological clock is essential for aligning behavior with the environment. Light and dark are the strongest external cues that influence circadian rhythms, but other daily changes, including temperature, and in some animals, such as birds, magnetic field and barometric pressure also play roles. Humans have been bucking their…

Getting the jump on a snowshoe hare at any time of year isn’t easy, which is why most of us see this abundant Adirondack lagomorph rarely. Yet, its tracks in snow often abound to the point where you’d be hard pressed to walk a hundred feet without finding some. Hare footprints consist of the impressions of the two super-sized hind feet, side by side, with smaller divots made by the front feet appearing, counterintuitively, behind them. One front foot leaves its mark a bit ahead of the other. As a hare bounds, its front feet land first. Then the back ones swing forward and around and land in front. March in the Adirondacks, while snow lasts, astonishes us with the plenitude of such tracks, perhaps at least in part because…