Ever since Adirondackers began keeping track, they’ve recorded hamlet-swallowing blizzards that socked folks behind snowdrift-jammed doors, downpours that ravaged river valleys, and hurricanes with jet-speed winds that uprooted chunks of forest.
More Articles From
Niki Kourofsky
The Adirondack Ice Bowl
Spectators—some in horned Viking helmets—watch from behind shin-high borders and burn barrels while players chase pucks toward six-inch-tall nets. Absent are goalies, time stops and thrown fists. This is the Adirondack Ice Bowl, an easy-going pond-hockey tournament in the heart of the Adirondacks.
BOW in the Snow
It wasn’t your usual pleasantries-over-brunch exchange, but this was no ordinary weekend. It was B.O.W. in the Snow, the winter version of Becoming an Outdoors-Woman, a nationwide program designed to build women’s confidence in outdoorsy skills.
Adirondack Store & Gallery: The Evolution of a Style Pioneer
Fifty-five years ago Tad and Linda Sturgis’s Adirondack Store was featured in the winter issue of Adirondack Life. By then, the couple’s emporium had been thriving for more than a decade.
The Adirondack Store
As you approach the rustic log and glass front of the Adirondack Store on Route 86, in Ray Brook, between Lake Placid and Saranac Lake, a glance through the window promises memorable browsing.
Adirondack Reads 2025: New Books of Regional Interest
The Adirondack 46 in 18 Hikes: The Complete Guide to Hiking the High Peaks (North Country Books, 2025), by James Appleton, offers a strategic roadmap to tackling the High Peaks.
Malfunction Junction in the Adirondacks
Photograph by Johnathan Esper Malfunction Junction, Dysfunction Junction, Spaghetti Junction, Crazy Corners—or, often for first-timers, What the Hell. Those are a few of the epithets for the intersection of Routes 9 and 73, in New Russia, a head-scratching...
The River Fixers: How the Ausable Freshwater Center Is Healing a Critical Waterway
By the time Tropical Storm Irene moved on, the Ausable River’s rage had washed away portions of Au Sable Forks, Jay, Upper Jay, Keene and other hamlets. Roads and homes, businesses and roadside attractions, including the actual Land of Makebelieve, a former theme park in Upper Jay, were swamped. A total of $25 million in damages sat on the ledgers of hamlets whose combined annual budgets were a mere $4 million.
The Adirondack Roots of Our New Thriller
Twenty-five years ago, in Montclair, New Jersey, Anne walked into a bookstore for the launch of Christina’s second novel. We were both relatively new to town—Anne had just moved from Brooklyn; Christina was adjusting to suburban life after years on the Upper West Side. Within minutes, we discovered a creative kinship that would eventually lead us deep into the Adirondack wilderness, both literally and literarily.
About Orra
She rushed from her campsite at Marcy Dam to Lake Colden after being summoned in the deep of a September night. A man splitting wood for his party’s campfire had sliced his ankle to the bone with an ax.

















