The Trails of the Adirondacks


Book Description

This official book published with the Adirondack Mountain Club celebrates America's original hiking destination through breathtaking contemporary photography, maps, rarely seen archival photos, and a text that brings the history of the trails to life. The Adirondack Park is home to the largest protected natural area in the lower 48 states--six million acres including more than 10,000 lakes, 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, and thousands of miles of hiking trails running from mountain summits through a wide variety of habitats including wetlands and old-growth forests. How better to view this wilderness than afoot on the many trails, many leading to some of the most picturesque summits in North America. There are trails for everyone in the Adirondacks. Today, thousands enjoy hiking, skiing, and snowshoeing trails to backcountry destinations all around the park while others aspire to climb all 46 peaks. Water trails include the historic Fulton Chain of Lakes, Raquette River, and Saranac River routes, in addition to more intimate paddles across wild lakes and waters that meander through towering mountains and verdant forests. Every season has its own charm, all portrayed here in this one of a kind volume of history and photography along Adirondack trails. This is a book for anyone who enjoys travelling through the Adirondack backcountry and includes unique and picturesque destinations throughout the Adirondack Park in addition to a comprehensive history on hiking in the Adirondacks. From the dramatic beauty of the Lake George Wild Forest, to numerous fire tower summits and open ledges and mountaintops scattered around the park, and the rugged splendor of the High Peaks and bucolic beauty of the Champlain Valley, this book covers it all.




Woodswoman


Book Description

Ecologist Anne LaBastille created the life that many people dream about. When she and her husband divorced, she needed a place to live. Through luck and perseverance, she found the ideal spot: a 20-acre parcel of land in the Adirondack mountains, where she built the cozy, primitive log cabin that became her permanent home. Miles from the nearest town, LaBastille had to depend on her wits, ingenuity, and the help of generous neighbors for her survival. In precise, poetic language, she chronicles her adventures on Black Bear Lake, capturing the power of the landscape, the rhythms of the changing seasons, and the beauty of nature’s many creatures. Most of all, she captures the struggle to balance her need for companionship and love with her desire for independence and solitude. Woodswoman is not simply a book about living in the wilderness, it is a book about living that contains a lesson for us all.




Adirondack Wilderness


Book Description

Since its inception as "forever wild" in the 1880s, New York's Adirondack Park has served as a model of conservation for the world. The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit organization devoted to protecting the diversity of life on Earth and preeminent Adirondack photographer Nathan Farb here team up to reveal feats of nature that the human eye on its own would not perceive. In the tradition of Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter, Farb renders the most miniscule detail as clearly as the grandest vista.







Forever Wild


Book Description

In this work Terrie offers an assessment of the roles that the Adirondacks have played in American history. He brings to life the scientists and scholars, the travellers and sportsmen, the publicists and bureaucrats, who together have contributed to the wilderness aesthetic.




Defending the Wilderness


Book Description

Essays written and pictures taken by the author over the last fifty years represent an anthology of his wilderness philosophy. No index. No bibliography. Cloth edition (unseen), $29.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




Noah John Rondeau's Adirondack Wilderness Days


Book Description

While living far from civilization at ¿Cold River City¿Population one,¿ Noah John Rondeau, the original Adirondack Hermit, wrote daily diary entries to document his experience. To conceal incriminating information from ¿snooping game protectors¿ he developed an enigmatic code that was said to resemble the ¿footprints of an inebriated hen.¿ In 1946, Rondeau wrote his entire journal in code, making it the most mysterious of all. Attempts to break the code all ended in failure until David Greene discovered a key and shared his findings with author William J. O¿Hern. Noah John Rondeau¿s Adirondack Wilderness Days¿A Year with the Hermit of Cold River Flow, tells the story of how the code was broken and then reveals the real story of a fun-loving hermit thriving in the wilderness. In addition to Rondeau¿s decoded journal entries, letters, photographs and reminiscences from friends who visited him complete the story of the misunderstood recluse. Why did Noah create the code? What secrets does it contain? Learn the answers in Noah John Rondeau¿s Adirondack Wilderness Days. Features over 135 vintage photographs and illustrations!




At the Mercy of the Mountains


Book Description

In the tradition of Eiger Dreams, In the Zone: Epic Survival Stories from the Mountaineering World, and Not Without Peril, comes a new book that examines the thrills and perils of outdoor adventure in the “East’s greatest wilderness,” the Adirondacks.




A Wild Idea


Book Description

A Wild Idea shares the complete story of the difficult birth of the Adirondack Park Agency (APA). The Adirondack region of New York's rural North Country forms the nation's largest State Park, with a territory as large as Vermont. Planning experts view the APA as a triumph of sustainability that balances human activity with the preservation of wild ecosystems. The truth isn't as pretty. The story of the APA, told here for the first time, is a complex, troubled tale of political dueling and communities pushed to the brink of violence. The North Country's environmental movement started among a small group of hunters and hikers, rose on a huge wave of public concern about pollution that crested in the early 1970s, and overcame multiple obstacles to "save" the Adirondacks. Edmondson shows how the movement's leaders persuaded a powerful Governor to recruit planners, naturalists, and advisors and assign a task that had never been attempted before. The team and the politicians who supported them worked around the clock to draft two visionary land-use plans and turn them into law. But they also made mistakes, and their strict regulations were met with determined opposition from local landowners who insisted that private property is private. A Wild Idea is based on in-depth interviews with five dozen insiders who are central to the story. Their observations contain many surprising and shocking revelations. This is a rich, exciting narrative about state power and how it was imposed on rural residents. It shows how the Adirondacks were "saved," and also why that campaign sparked a passionate rebellion.