Barefoot Hiking in the Adirondacks

by Kristen A. Schmitt | May 18, 2023 | Featured, Guide to the Great Outdoors 2023

Photograph by Nancie Battaglia Wynde Kate Reese sets off for a day hike that will take her to the top of Rooster Comb Mountain in Keene Valley. She’ll pick her way over gnarled tree roots, pine needles and rock for several hours until she reaches the summit, just shy...

Free Skate: How to Build a Backyard Ice Rink

by Adirondack Life | Feb 1, 2023 | February 2022, Recreation

THE SLATERS For some Adirondackers, the ultimate in North Country living is being able to ski out the back door. But for Harold Slater, in Jay, it’s about “putting your skates on in the house and heading right out onto your own personal rink.” Harold first...

Massawepie: An Off-the-Beaten-Path Fall Outing

by Mark Kurtz | Oct 13, 2022 | Guide to the Great Outdoors 2022, Recreation

Photograph by Mark Kurtz 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...

Plan Your Perfect Adirondack Summer with These Ideas for Family Fun

by Adirondack Life | Jun 27, 2022 | August 2022

photograph courtesy of the Wild Center   Paddle On The Wild Center (518) 359-7800, www.wildcenter.org 45 Museum Drive, Tupper Lake To sample the paddling life without all the packing and planning, try a guided canoe trip through the Raquette River’s oxbow. The...

Ask an Expert: A Retired Forest Ranger Debunks Some Wilderness Whoppers

by Adirondack Life | Jun 1, 2022 | Guide to the Great Outdoors 2022, Recreation

illustration by Gwen Jamison Vogel 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...

Pick Your Adventure: Five Choice Adirondack Outings

by Adirondack Life | Jun 1, 2022 | Guide to the Great Outdoors 2022, Recreation

GILL BROOK TRAIL | TOWN OF KEENE 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. The Gill...

Ice-fishing’s a Way of Life for this Veteran Adirondack Guide

by Paul Greenberg | Feb 15, 2022 | February 2022, Nature and Environment

Terry Watson is usually much more careful. But when the chance to skitter across frozen Copperas Pond in search of big lake trout presented itself one spring day a few years back, the veteran Adirondack guide couldn’t refuse. In the course of Terry’s 60-plus years...

Cool Family Fun

by Veronica Spann | Jan 1, 2022 | February 2021, Recreation

Ice-fishing on Adirondack lakes My dad’s been the captain of every ice-fishing outing I’ve ever been on. And there have been plenty. Most people envision ice fishing as a quiet, solitary activity—sitting alone on a bucket, bobbing a line up and down until there’s a...

Pedals to the Metal

by Rebecca Soffer | Aug 13, 2020 | October 2020, Travel

Railbiking through the forest and along the Hudson River Photograph courtesy of Revolution Rail Co. I’m a lifelong Lake George enthusiast. Specifically, a lifelong Lake George Narrows camping enthusiast. My first trip to the islands was when I was two months old, for...

Glade Runners

by Connie Prickett | Feb 23, 2017 | April 2012, Recreation

Sometimes the pull to get outside in the spring is so strong that you just have to play hooky. It seems more than justified after the dark days of winter; I like to think of it as “calling in sunny.” That’s precisely what I did on a beautiful weekday in March to ski...