Just past Old Forge off Route 28 a mountain top with a revealing panorama awaits. Clearly marked by Adirondack Park Agency signs, the trail up Bald Mountain begins on Rondax Road and culminates on a rocky top with a fire tower and a stunning view of the Fulton Chain of Lakes and the mountains stretching out beyond. A modest climb by Adirondack standards, Bald Mountain nonetheless gives an indelible impression of the vastness of the Adirondack Park. This wilderness reserve is large enough to hold Yellowstone, Glacier and Smokey Mountain Parks as well as the Grand Canyon within the park’s border, the Blue Line. A unique combination of mountains, lakes…
Author: J.T. Hall
As the midpoint of the ski season approaches in Central New York, both Alpine and Nordic skiers have more reason to look forward than to look back. After an initial and promising snowfall in November, the weather conditions seem to have gone south, leaving the local and regional ski areas dependent on their own ability to make snow — an expensive proposition — and Nordic skiers stuck at home. As a result, Toggenburg, Song Mountain, Labrador, Greek Peak and the other regional areas have concentrated on addressing their main slopes with their snowmaking fan guns ($25,000 to $35,000 each and…
Maybe you have noticed them, flashes of orange and black flitting about the asters in your backyard garden, or around the flowerbeds bordering your neighbor’s home, in the fallow fields, or even amid the landscaping at more unlikely spots like Wegmans in DeWitt. They are the celebrated royalty of the lepidoptera world: the monarch butterflies. And they are on the move. After all, it is early October, and these fragile, striking insects are on their way back to the homes of their ancestors, far to the Southwest. Arguably America’s favorite bug, these Danaus plexippus (named for the mythological king of…
With lakes, museums and camping, the Adirondacks offer much more than spectacular fall foliage
Nancy Kelly has been a dominant figure on the Central New York jazz scene for more than 40 years. Trained first as a pianist and later as a vocalist at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, Kelly’s innate sense of phrasing and swing has earned widespread accolades including “Best Female Jazz Vocalist” in Downbeat magazine’s readers poll twice. Kelly’s first CD Live Jazz reached No. 11 on the Billboard charts, and her fifth, B That Way, spent eight weeks in the Top 50 on the Jazzweek charts. A frequent performer at the leading jazz venues in New York City,…
Consider this quote: “I believe that ultimately the electric motor will be universally used for trucking in all large cities,” the author predicted. “It will not be long before all the trucking in New York City will be electric.” Those words could reasonably have come from Elon Musk, the founder of the electric car maker Tesla, a company about to market a battery-powered semi-truck. Or from Sweden’s Volvo, or from Germany’s Daimler or from the Workhorse Group in Cincinnati or from the Chinese manufacturer BYD, all of which are either marketing or are about to market electric trucks. But, surprisingly…
In 1872 Verplanck Colvin, a lawyer, topographical engineer and recently appointed superintendent of the Adirondack Survey from Albany, stood on the slopes of the High Peaks area peering through primitive survey equipment, some of his own design. With a crew of assistants that sometimes numbered nearly 100, Colvin sought to quantify the vast wilderness in an effort to get the state to recognize the need for management and preservation. Colvin’s continuing efforts eventually led to the establishment of the Adirondack Park by the New York State Legislature in 1882. A unique combination of lakes, rivers and mountains, the Adirondack Park, at 6 million acres, is the largest wild reserve in the…
If the late 1960s was the dawning of the age of Aquarius, a future where harmony, understanding, sympathy and trust would abound, an even more radical reality — electronic music — loomed on the horizon as well. In fact, the eponymous theremin, the primitive tone generator that provided the creepy whine heard in many a science-fiction B-movie, had been on the market for some time, and the voltage-controlled analog synthesizer was under development by Robert Moog, a Ph.D. in electronic physics from Cornell University in Ithaca. Primitive as well by today’s standards, Moog’s transistorized synthesizer, a keyboard instrument, first met the public during a demonstration/concert at his Trumansburg facility on Aug.…
Knowlton talks origin story, big-names in bluegrass and his legacy.
To make a small fortune in the ski business, the old saw goes, start with a big one. At the mercy of the economy and especially the vagaries of an uncooperative climate, ski centers everywhere face ever-rising challenges to produce conditions that will attract ticket buyers. The 2016-2017 season saw big snowfalls at the beginning and the end of the season and little in the middle. In contrast, Four Seasons, Toggenburg, Song Mountain, Labrador and Greek Peak have had enough favorable weather so far this year to make enough snow to open in time for the Christmas-New Year’s holidays, a…
The Adirondacks offer unique autumnal pleasures and breathtaking views.
Lakes, scenery and much more welcome travelers to the Adirondack Mountains.
M&T Syracuse Jazz Fest appealed to the widest audiences with musical variety.
The Mavericks drummer on what makes his Miami sound machine work.
Tower of Power’s Emilio Castillo talks about what funk means.