Rolf Schulte grew up in a small village east of Düsseldorf, Germany, in the Sauerland region. He took his first photograph in 1948 at the age of 10 using a simple box camera—a picture of a local blacksmith shoeing a horse. Post-war Germany was a diff

Biographer Harvey Dunham called the southern Adirondack hermit Louis Seymour, better known as French Louie, “hard as Laurentian granite and tough as Adirondack spruce.” (For more on Dunham, see page 80.) Louie had a sprawling network of temporary cam

On the Leonardsville Road this gusty April morning, the wind is inhabited—by pine voices and widow-makers, squirrels and warblers, and the echoes of people I have never known or imagined. As I walk down the road on the center yellow line, I hear them

On a chilly autumn morning, Adam Welz waded through chest-high grass near Westport in the eastern Adirondack foothills, pausing to scan with his binoculars and listen. “That’s a northern flicker, right?” he said. “That does the wok-wok-wok-wok!” Welz

Our pints runneth over, as three new brewpubs sprang up around the park this summer. In Warrensburg, the folks at Bandstand Brew Works (3922 Main Street, on Facebook) converted an 1855 barn into an indoor/outdoor tavern that dishes out an eclectic me

Spring break, 2023. You set your GPS to avoid the Interstate so you can enjoy the sights along Route 9 in the Adirondacks. There’s incredible scenery. On every side of you is a beautiful peak, and the snow adds a majestic coat to the scene. Even thou

There’s a cabin colony renaissance happening in the heart of the Adirondacks, where rentals are changing hands and getting modern fixes while retaining much of their original charm. Laying your woodsmoke-scented head to rest in one of these cabins, i

They come like a landslide, the earth trembling beneath their mighty hoofs, and the sound of their coming is like the roar of an avalanche.” The spectacle described by naturalist Ernest Harold Baynes—a bison stampede—had once been a familiar feature

The wide-open view atop Cat Mountain, off the western shore of Lake George, overlooks Trout Lake and Pilot Knob to the south. Trailhead: Valley Woods Road, Bolton Total distance: 6 miles, out-and-back round-trip Difficulty: Moderate to challenging Ap

Willow hung around for two months. I would have walked past her, oblivious, but back then my daughter was waist-high, her eyes the same level as the rock wall in front of our farmhouse. My daughter was—and still is—a rescuer of worms and woolly bears

Celebrate the harvest or lift a stein to the season at colorful gatherings throughout the park. Below is a sampling—visit the event calendar at adirondacklife.com for more ideas. SEPTEMBER 21: Adirondack Harvest SEPTEMBER 21: Adirondack Harvest Festi

I discovered the joys of backcountry camping in 1966, just before a boom in high-tech camping gear. My friends and I used what now seems to have been antediluvian equipment, most of it loosely inspired by the gear our fathers and uncles had been issu

Hermit biographer Harvey Dunham (above, far left), author of Adirondack French Louie: Early Life in the North Woods, did his own tramping around the backcountry decades before he chronicled French Louie’s wanderings. This photograph was taken at the

Just before the sun disappeared, a loon floating nearby did the same, diving for dinner along the shore of Lower Saranac Lake. From inside the Sunset Bistro, at Ampersand Bay Resort, in Saranac Lake, the scene seemed staged. But this is the Adirondac

Cows are surprisingly noisy eaters. In the pasture at North Country Creamery’s 120-acre farm in Keeseville, you hear rip, rip, rip as the ladies use their tongues to pull up clumps of grass, grazing “like they know what’s coming,” says Ashlee Kleinha

They come like a landslide, the earth trembling beneath their mighty hoofs, and the sound of their coming is like the roar of an avalanche.” The spectacle described by naturalist Ernest Harold Baynes—a bison stampede—had once been a familiar feature

On a chilly autumn morning, Adam Welz waded through chest-high grass near Westport in the eastern Adirondack foothills, pausing to scan with his binoculars and listen. “That’s a northern flicker, right?” he said. “That does the wok-wok-wok-wok!” Welz

Willow hung around for two months. I would have walked past her, oblivious, but back then my daughter was waist-high, her eyes the same level as the rock wall in front of our farmhouse. My daughter was—and still is—a rescuer of worms and woolly bears

I discovered the joys of backcountry camping in 1966, just before a boom in high-tech camping gear. My friends and I used what now seems to have been antediluvian equipment, most of it loosely inspired by the gear our fathers and uncles had been issu

Just before the sun disappeared, a loon floating nearby did the same, diving for dinner along the shore of Lower Saranac Lake. From inside the Sunset Bistro, at Ampersand Bay Resort, in Saranac Lake, the scene seemed staged. But this is the Adirondac

Our pints runneth over, as three new brewpubs sprang up around the park this summer. In Warrensburg, the folks at Bandstand Brew Works (3922 Main Street, on Facebook) converted an 1855 barn into an indoor/outdoor tavern that dishes out an eclectic me

Cows are surprisingly noisy eaters. In the pasture at North Country Creamery’s 120-acre farm in Keeseville, you hear rip, rip, rip as the ladies use their tongues to pull up clumps of grass, grazing “like they know what’s coming,” says Ashlee Kleinha

Biographer Harvey Dunham called the southern Adirondack hermit Louis Seymour, better known as French Louie, “hard as Laurentian granite and tough as Adirondack spruce.” (For more on Dunham, see page 80.) Louie had a sprawling network of temporary cam