Table of contents for Outings Guide 2022 in Adirondack Explorer

The Adirondack Rail Trail, a planned 34-mile recreational corridor through the villages of Lake Placid, Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake, is offering outdoor options even before completion. Although the trail won’t be finished for a few years, the corridor already has seen a rise in human traffic since the removal of the tracks last year. The state Department of Environmental Conservation intends to work on the first section of the trail—from Lake Placid to Saranac Lake—this year. The entire trail is scheduled to be complete in 2025. In the meantime, DEC is allowing people to use the route, but the loose gravel of the original rail bed is far from ideal for hiking and biking. Expect uneven footing and bumpy riding. Things will improve once the department surfaces the bed…

In some ways the Cranberry Lake 50 is a perfect trail for a pandemic. The trail is often wide, following old logging roads, so if you do meet a hiker (a rare occurrence) it’s easy to keep a safe distance. The terrain is rolling, sometimes even flat, and many streams cross the trail. It’s possible to camp almost anywhere to avoid lean-tos and developed campsites. But this beautiful trail wasn’t designed to hide fugitives and hermits. Tom and I often hike the 50-mile loop at the end of April, when we have school vacation and before the black flies. We hike for three days with friends, hoping they’ll find the same peace we do as we walk past remote ponds, stride above the rest of the world on a long…

In early May, Maeghan Farnham and Matt Smith set out to paddle the Oswegatchie Traverse, a classic trip in the northwestern Adirondacks. Due to the time of the year, they had no problems finding a campsite. With high waters, they cruised down the Oswegatchie, a waterway known for forcing many paddlers out of their boats with its dozens of beaver dams. Both expert paddlers, they finished the 35-mile trip in two days. You could definitely say that things went smoothly. But not everyone is so lucky when they head out on paddling adventures in the Adirondack Park. Part of the reason is that many people plan their overnight trips when conditions are prime, in July and August. As a result, paddlers looking for water-access campsites at popular places such as…

Bob Erickson kicked and glided between the hardwoods, across a new wooden bridge and then through a tunnel of snow-plastered spruce boughs. This was the thing he had craved for several years since moving to Piseco from Wisconsin—a clear cross-country ski path through the woods near home. And now, on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, there was even fresh snow covering the icy crust that had made earlier outings treacherous. Most people forgot the trail, available for hiking, snowshoeing and skiing, was even an option. A couple dozen people would sign the register all year. With the trail reopened in 2021, though, dozens of skiers and snowshoers—162 of them—would register in about the first five weeks of the year. Not too rugged or hilly, but plenty serene with a…

It was July, and I was looking for an interesting but easily accessible paddling route in the northern Adirondacks—a place where I could get away from the summer crowds. So I picked a loop that I had previously paddled on the St. Regis lakes in Paul Smiths. The trip starts on Keese Mills Road at the trailhead for St. Regis Mountain. From the lot, there is a carry to the North Bay of Upper St. Regis Lake. You can then paddle to Spitfire Lake, Lower St. Regis Lake, and then take a channel back to your vehicle. The shores of Upper St. Regis and Spitfire are more developed than those surrounded by state land or in the neighboring St. Regis Canoe Area, but this trip offers a nice mix of…

Fishing Brook has the feel of a brook deep in the backcountry. The air is often thick with bugs and the sounds of birds. Beaver dams clog the waterway, creating meadows. Yellow wildflowers—swamp candles—light up the shorelines. Brook trout swim in the shadows. The only intrusions on the wild experience are vehicle noises from nearby State Route 28N, which connects the tiny communities of Newcomb and Long Lake, and some logging on the surrounding conservation easement. Fishing Brook and the connected County Line Flow opened to the public as part of the state’s deal with the Nature Conservancy to preserve the former Finch, Pruyn & Co. timberlands. The land around the water is mostly off-limits. Boaters aren’t allowed to go ashore on County Line Flow other than at a take-out.…

Fifty years ago, the last Department of Environmental Conservation truck rolled along the miles of wide gravel road from Coreys to the old ranger station at Shattuck Clearing. Now balsam and beech trees crowd into the roadbed and toads and red efts live in its mossy ecosystem. In 1972, the State Land Master Plan designated the Western High Peaks as wilderness, land “without significant improvement or permanent human habitation.” If it were still legal, this area north of the Cold River would be a welcome place for a 21st century Adirondack hermit, someone who would continue the tradition that Noah John Rondeau began in 1929. These days human voices rarely disturb the quiet on the ridge above the Cold River where Rondeau made his home for 20 years. At the…

Fourth of July, hordes of tourists, a pandemic—I would have to put on my thinking cap if Carol and I were to escape the crowds and mitigate the risk of contracting the coronavirus. We knew we wanted to mountain bike, but we feared that our go-to place—the BETA trails off Hardy Road in Wilmington—would be mobbed. So I suggested a ride I had discovered earlier in the year, a 15.6-mile loop over logging roads and little-used town roads in the northern Adirondacks. It turned out to be a good choice. Apart from 2 walkers and an occasional car or all-terrain vehicle, we encountered no one in three hours of cycling. And we were rewarded with striking views of mountains and waterways and a thrilling downhill that lasted nearly two miles.…

I remember my conversation in 2007 with Phil Brown, the former editor of Adirondack Explorer, as if it were yesterday. I sought an off-the-beaten-path hike that I could include in the first edition of my book, “Hiking the Adirondacks,” and it was Phil’s forte to find places in the park that were undiscovered yet interesting to explore. “Nun-da-ga-o, for sure,” he said. “Who-sa, what-sa?” I asked. I had never heard of Nun-da-ga-o, though I had spent 30 years hiking in the Adirondack Mountains, mostly in the High Peaks. I assumed it was in a lesser-visited, lower-elevation part of the park. “It’s in Keene,” replied Phil. “You get there from Crow Clearing.” I knew the trailhead. Crow Clearing is the start of the northern approach to Hurricane Mountain and the eastern…

The loon was either truly loony, primping with great fanfare, or just having fun. Only 20 yards from the bow of our canoe, it waved a wing, scratched its “armpit,” and rolled onto its back with a whoosh. Its black, webbed feet danced a jig, then the spirited bird rolled upright again, glancing at us with its striking red eyes. It poked its head under the water, then sent a delicate fountain into the air as it lifted its dark beak skyward. My husband, Jack, and I giggled at the bird’s animated antics, then dug our paddles into the crystalline water of Little Clear Pond in the St. Regis Canoe Area. The only designated canoe area in New York and the largest wilderness canoe area in the Northeast, its eastern…

My hike began on a mellow gravel pathway crossing a meadow. I paused to watch blackbirds and geese at a wetland before meandering through a blueberry barren, hopscotching a hemlock forest stream, goat-footing a rocky spine, sashaying a grassy oak glen, and gradually looping down to the start. In not even 2 miles, the route had almost everything. This trail has siblings all over the park. Some are graded smooth and wide, while some are skinny, stony and rooty. Some are new, and some follow ages-old woods roads or paths. Some climb the heights; some meander the flats. Some visit wetlands, and some visit big lakes. All are well-marked, signed and mapped. All are welcoming. They’re our community trails. Most of these layouts, whether just one trail or 30, are…