The Magazine of the Mountains since 1969
Massawepie is an Iroquois term that means “lake by the marsh”—the source of the name being obvious, with the Massawepie Mire virtually touching Massawepie Lake. The mire is the largest boreal peatland in New York State and critical habitat for birds, including warblers and grouse, as well as carnivorous plants and tamarack and black spruce trees.
I’m sitting in a canoe in the middle of Cedar River Flow, hoping it won’t capsize. Not just because it’s loaded to the gunwales with backpacks and other camping gear, but because my 92-year-old father is in the stern, and he’s six-foot-four and not quite as steady as he used to be.
My TOBIE trail adventure last summer was perfectly planned—in my head, at least.
Pitchoff Mountain, nine miles east of Lake Placid, has two distinct personalities.
Last spring, six paddlers representing three Haudenosaunee nations—two Mohawks from Akwesasne, two Oneidas and two Onondagas—began a journey along the Northern Forest Canoe Trail (NFCT).
When I told my 16-year-old daughter I was going on a seven-or-so-mile round-trip hike alone last September, she acted like I was marching to my doom.
I learned about the state-run campsites on the islands peppering Lake George, which—for $28 a night—allow us commoners the chance to live like rusticated Kardashians for a while.
By the time I reached the first climb of the Over Easy Mountain Bike Route, the whole canopy bowed with the weight of the rain. My single-track ribbon had become a river full of frogs.
Scott van Laer, a recently retired Department of Environmental Conservation forest ranger, knows a thing or two about how to safely recreate outdoors. After three decades working to protect the environment while educating, rescuing and recovering folks, first in the Catskills and then in the Adirondacks, he’s an expert and then some.
The clear pools dotting Gill Brook are popular places to cool off on the way to or from other hot spots in the Adirondack Mountain Reserve—Indian Head, the Colvin Range, Nippletop—but the waterway can be its own destination.
Subscribe Today!
for calendars, apparel, maps and more!