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.
History
Manhunt Revisited: 10 Years After the Dannemora Escape
A mother accompanied her child to the school bus with a rifle slung over her shoulder. Guns were loaded and propped near doors and windows. People slept with hammers and baseball bats. They locked their houses, camps, cars and trucks—some for the first time ever. Armed officers lined roadways, searched passing vehicles, and swept forests and fields while the chop of helicopters drowned out the sounds of Adirondack springtime.
Renaissance Man
I remember the gloss of a fresh coat of varnish on a newly built boat. I remember the coziness of the shop from the woodstove in the dead of winter. But even without it, my dad’s energy filled the area. He was calm and focused, with a passion for his craft. For years...
Raiding Party
Fort Ticonderoga hosts a three-day reenactment of the capture of Fort Ticonderoga on the 250th anniversary of the raid.
Gone: Missing on Whiteface
Last year on a February afternoon, Danny Filippidis left Whiteface Mountain’s Mid-Station Lodge, clicked into his red Volkls and skied away. According to the Canadian Press, he’d told his friends, a group of fellow Toronto firefighters on their annual Adirondack ski trip, that he wanted to fetch his phone at the bottom of the mountain. And then he disappeared.
Make Traditional North Country Hand-Warmers: Buff Mittens
Coming from different places and never mass produced, the homemade hand-warmers have been known by names such as shag or shagged mittens, fringe, buff or latch-hook mittens—all references to the yarn that forms a thick pile on the surface of the knit fabric.
The Healing Woods
Martha Rebentisch fell sick with the same disease that killed her mother. She dropped out of high school and left home in New York City to fight for her life at sanatoriums, where clean country air was the only hope for survival from tuberculosis, rampant at that time.
Summer of Garrow
Robert Garrow was on the run. The 37-year-old who grew up in the Adirondacks hunting, fishing and trapping had left a trail of terror in the wilderness. Hundreds of police officers, guided by forest rangers and tracking dogs, swarmed the Hamilton County woods trying to find him.
The Haus on the Hill: Saul Goodman’s Lake Placid Refuge
There were times during his retirement to the Adirondacks when my grandfather, the 20th century’s greatest classical percussionist, Saul Goodman, fell silent behind the helm of his large automobile. With a half-smile on his lips he would take in the sweep of the Great Range while his fingers drummed out something specific on the rim of the steering wheel.
Highlander: Peter Fish, of Keene
As of early April 2012, Peter Fish, of Keene, had hiked 5,344-foot Mount Marcy 763 times. The 76-year-old retired forest ranger, who’s still a High Peaks fixture after working there from 1975 to 1998, chats about how to appreciate this place; why he sports a kilt; and where he’s planned his terrestrial exit strategy—not on what he calls “the Big M.”
On Sale Now
December 2025
Pulling back the curtain on the rough-and-tumble world of backcountry guides, plus Old Forge’s beloved Strand Theatre, the life of a master woodworker, Santas on the slopes and more!
Adirondack Life Magazine
Subscribe Today!
Latest Articles
Follow Us
Adirondack Life Store
for calendars, apparel, maps and more!