2021 Guide to the Great Outdoors

Adirondack Life

Adirondack Life magazine is your source for the best of New York's Adirondack Park.

Adirondack Life2 min read
Editor’s Note
It’s been a long year. This spring, as I look outside, Jay Mountain’s snowy streaks melting to green, I just want to be on that summit. I want to be in the woods, in the river, and sleeping beneath the stars with friends and family. Some of that can
Adirondack Life1 min read
Adirondack Life
PUBLISHING TEAM CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Lisa Lincoln CONTROLLER Joni Manning EXECUTIVE EDITOR Annie Stoltie EDITORIAL EXECUTIVE EDITOR Annie Stoltie SENIOR EDITORS Lisa Bramen, Niki Kourofsky DESIGNER Mark Mahorsky CONTRIBUTORS Nancie Battaglia, Mark Bo
Adirondack Life4 min read
Listening Tour
Early last spring, in places where it was normally loud, it was often nearly silent. There was little automobile traffic and few open businesses. And people, if they left their homes at all, were not stopping to chat. The pandemic locked things down
Adirondack Life2 min read
Taking Paws
If you’re on the hunt for peaks that are perfect for pups, then this is the challenge for you. Finish all nine hikes and you and your fur-pal will qualify for snazzy new patches for your day packs. Check out adk-9.com for details, hike prep and dog s
Adirondack Life5 min read
A Reel Challenge
Fishing has become a part of my life’s fabric. It wasn’t always—in fact, it’s only been since last spring, when COVID-19 made our family full-time residents of Blue Mountain Lake. (Blue is a place deeply entrenched in our hearts, but had always been
Adirondack Life2 min read
Otter Sight!
The wind picked up, turning the Cedar River Flow’s smooth surface into frothy waves and chop. With some effort, I paddled a straight course to Buell Brook, a twisty waterway sheltered by shrub-choked banks. At a cove where the water was as still as g
Adirondack Life4 min read
Lost and Found
The shiny, clean Subaru pulled over and a friendly voice from behind a surgical mask asked, “Everything OK? You need a ride to the next stop?” Was it the fact that everything in my too-heavy backpack was strewn along the berm lining the side of the r
Adirondack Life4 min read
Wild Flavors
Growing up in the southern Adirondacks, my favorite childhood memories were my family’s highly anticipated, week-long camping trips at Paradox Lake and Eagle Point Campground. As I grew older, these trips extended farther off the beaten path—to a fav
Adirondack Life3 min read
The Great Adirondack Life Challenge
IN 2019, DOZENS OF INTREPID ADIRONDACK LIFE READERS TOOK ON THE inaugural Great Adirondack Life Challenge, completing a series of Blue Line–centric activities. After a year’s pause, we’re back with a whole new set of tasks designed to make the most o
Adirondack Life1 min read
Flight Club
RIDING THE ROUTE 9 BIKE PATH ALONG Lake Champlain, I’m on my way to the Ausable Point Campground. I’m hoping to photograph some gliding and soaring—not the osprey, herons and eagles I’ve photographed there for years, but the colorful kites dotting th
Adirondack Life10 min read
And Nature For All
AS A CHILD GROWING UP in the South Bronx in the 1960s and ’70s, I dreamed of one day exploring the outdoors and traveling to scenic natural spaces around the world. Where would an inner-city kid like me get the idea to venture into the great outdoors
Adirondack Life6 min read
Blue Line To Blue Line
BIG THINGS ARE WORTH DOING. They create defining moments of your life. That’s why, when I heard about the 240-mile Trans Adirondack Route, I knew I had to do it. I’m an impatient person. I never seriously considered taking on a months-long thru-hike
Adirondack Life1 min read
Step By Step
Northern Blue Line to Union Falls Pond Distance: 43.2 miles Climbing: 2,300 vertical feet Union Falls Pond to Route 86 Distance: 27.8 miles Climbing: 7,000 vertical feet Route 86 to County Highway 25 Distance: 30.6 miles Climbing: 4,300 vertical feet
Adirondack Life1 min read
Tupper Lake Triad
REMEMBERING THE TRIO OF TRIPS THAT make up the Tupper Lake Paddling Triad, photographer Nancie Battaglia says, “It was pretty special when we paddled into Stony Creek Pond and spotted two bald eagles gazing down on us. That doesn’t happen every day.”
Adirondack Life1 min read
Mossopedia
THE NORTHERN FOREST ATLAS project’s Mosses of the Northern Forest: A Digital Atlas is a bryologist-wannabe’s dream come true. And for those willing to look closely, it’s an introduction to organisms that for 350 million years have survived on inhospi
Adirondack Life4 min read
For The Record
RYAN ATKINS 3 DAYS, 5 HOURS, 52 MINUTES JAN WELLFORD 3 DAYS, 17 HOURS, 14 MINUTES TED “CAVE DOG” KEIZER 3 DAYS, 18 HOURS, 14 MINUTES ED PALEN, SHARP SWAN 5 DAYS ED PALEN, SHARP SWAN 7 DAYS FATHER RAY DONAHUE 9 DAYS PETER WELLES 11 DAYS FIFTY-NINE YEA
Adirondack Life8 min read
Short and Sweet
I have never been a long-distance hiker. Planning and commitment are needed to tackle the big peaks, and if I’m honest I have never shown a particular aptitude in either of these areas. I was always more of a, “Hey, it’s a nice day. Let’s go play in
Adirondack Life6 min read
In Search of Community
The words of physician’s assistant Mark Ippolito stuck in my head as I left the tiny Lake Placid hospital. I was doing my job as a forest ranger lieutenant, checking on the injured backpacker in the emergency room. He had been brought to the hospital
Adirondack Life2 min read
Fine Dining & Lodging
The Waldheim. Seventeen cottages with fireplaces overlooking scenic Big Moose Lake. Established in 1904, The Waldheim has changed little since. Rates include three delicious meals served daily in a central dining room. Unstructured opportunities allo
Adirondack Life6 min read
50 Hikes
Autumn leaves created a kaleidoscope on the muddy trail as I slogged up Owls Head Mountain in Long Lake, in October 2015. I was 49 years old and facing major changes in the coming year. In February I would turn 50, and I was less than thrilled about
Adirondack Life2 min read
Guide To The Guides
In an era when we rely more and more on our smartphones for everything from entertainment to navigation, physical guidebooks may seem obsolete. But as anyone who has lost cell service or battery life in the Adirondack backcountry knows, there’s no re
Adirondack Life6 min read
To-Do List
The world may be inching toward normalcy, but you might not be ready to dive into a massive organized event like, say, the 40-mile Black Fly Challenge, in Inlet, or the Wilmington-to-Utica Peak 2 Brew ADK Relay. (If you are, no worries—those races ar

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