Everything about Adirondack Mountains totally explained
The
Adirondack mountain range is located in the northeastern part of
New York that runs through
Clinton,
Essex,
Franklin,
Fulton,
Hamilton,
Herkimer,
Lewis,
St. Lawrence,
Saratoga,
Warren, and
Washington counties.
The mountains are often included by geographers in the
Appalachian Mountains, but they're geologically more similar to the
Laurentian Mountains of
Canada. They are bordered on the east by
Lake Champlain and
Lake George, which separate them from the
Green Mountains in
Vermont. They are bordered to the south by the
Mohawk Valley and to the west by the
Tug Hill Plateau, separated by the
Black River. This region is south of the
St. Lawrence River.
Land
State park
The Adirondack Mountains are contained within the 6.1 million acres (25,000 km²) of the
Adirondack Park, which includes a constitutionally-protected
Forest Preserve of approximately 2.3 million acres (9,300 km²). About 43% of the land is owned by the state, with 57% private
inholdings, heavily regulated by the
Adirondack Park Agency. The Adirondack Park contains thousands of streams, brooks and lakes, most famously
Lake Placid, adjacent to the village of
Lake Placid, two-time site of the
Olympic Winter Games, the
Saranac Lakes, favored by the sportsmen who made the Adirondacks famous, and
Raquette Lake, site of many of the first
Great Camps.
Mountains
The Adirondacks don't form a connected range, but is an eroded dome consisting of many summits, isolated or in groups, often with little apparent order. There are over one hundred summits, ranging from under 1200 to over 5000 feet (370 m to 1500 m) in altitude; the highest peak,
Mount Marcy (sometimes also called Tahawus, although that was never its true name), at 5344 ft (1629 m), is near the eastern part of the group.
Other noted
High Peaks include
Algonquin Peak (formerly Mt. McIntyre), 5114 ft (1559 m),
Haystack 4960 ft (1512 m),
Skylight 4926 ft (1501 m),
Whiteface 4867 ft (1483 m),
Dix 4857 ft (1480 m), and
Giant 4627 ft (1410 m).
High peaks
Forty-six of the tallest mountains are considered "the 46"
Adirondack High Peaks — those over 4,000 ft (1,219 m), thanks to a survey done around the start of the 20th century. Since then, better surveys have shown that four of these peaks (
Blake Peak,
Cliff Mountain,
Nye Mountain, and
Couchsachraga Peak) are in fact just under 4,000 ft, and one peak just over 4,000 ft (
MacNaughton Mountain) was overlooked.
There are many fans of the Adirondack Mountains who make an effort to climb all of the original 46 mountains (and most go on to climb MacNaughton as well), and there's a
Forty Sixers club for those who have successfully reached each of these peaks. Twenty of the 46 remain trailless, so climbing them requires
bushwhacking or following
herd paths to the top.
Geology and physiography
The Adirondack Mountains are a
physiographic province of the larger
Appalachian physiographic division.
The mountains consist primarily of
metamorphic rocks, mainly
gneiss, surrounding a central core of
intrusive igneous rocks, most notably
anorthosite, in the high peaks region. These crystalline rocks are a lobe of the
Precambrian Grenville
Basement rock complex and represent the southernmost extent of the
Canadian Shield, a
cratonic expression of igneous and metamorphic rock 880 million to 1 billion years in age that covers most of eastern and northern
Canada and all of
Greenland. Although the rocks are ancient, the uplift that formed the Adirondack dome has occurred within the last 5 million years — relatively recent in
geologic time — and is ongoing. The dome itself is roughly circular, approximately 160 miles (260 km) in diameter and about one mile (1.6 km) high. The uplift is almost completely surrounded by
Palaeozoic strata which lap up on the sides of the underlying basement rocks. This rate is greater than the rate of erosion in the region today and is considered a fairly high rate of movement. Earthquakes in the region have exceeded 5 on the Richter scale.
The mountains form the drainage divide between the
Hudson watershed and the
Great Lakes Basin/
St. Lawrence River watershed. On the south and south-west the waters flow either directly into the Hudson, which rises in the center of the group, or else reach it through the
Mohawk River. On the north and east the waters reach the St. Lawrence by way of Lakes
George and
Champlain, and on the west they flow directly into that stream or reach it through
Lake Ontario. The tiny
Lake Tear-of-the-Clouds, nestled in the heart of the High Peaks area between Mt. Marcy and Skylight, is considered to be the source of the mighty Hudson. The most important streams within the area are the Hudson,
Black,
Oswegatchie,
Grasse,
Raquette,
Saranac,
Schroon and
Ausable River rivers.
The region was once covered, with the exception of the higher summits, by the
Laurentian Glacier, whose erosion, while perhaps having little effect on the larger features of the country, has greatly modified it in detail, producing lakes and ponds, whose number is said to exceed 1300, and causing many falls and rapids in the streams. Among the larger lakes are Lake George,
The Fulton Chain, the
Upper and
Lower Saranac,
Big and
Little Tupper,
Schroon,
Placid,
Long,
Raquette and
Blue Mountain. The region known as the Adirondack Wilderness, or the
Great North Woods, embraces between 5000 and 6000 square miles (13,000 km² and 16,000 km²) of mountain, lake, plateau and forest.
Mining was once a significant industry in the Adirondacks. The region is rich in magnetic iron ores, which were mined for many years. Other
mineral products are
graphite,
garnet used as an abrasive,
pyrite, wollastonite, and
zinc ore. There is also a great quantity of
titanium, which was mined extensively.
Naming, spelling and pronunciation
The mountains were given the name Adirondacks in 1838 by
Ebenezer Emmons; the name is sometimes spelled "Adirondaks", without a "c". Some of the place names in the vicinity of Lake Placid have peculiar phonetic spellings attributed to
Melville Dewey, who was a principal influence in developing that town and the
Lake Placid Club. The
Adirondak Loj (pronounced "Lodge"), a popular hostel and trailhead run by the
Adirondack Mountain Club in the high peaks region, is one example.
More interesting is the meaning of the word "Adirondacks." It is an Anglicized version of the Mohawk
latilontaks (
ratirontaks)
'they eat bark', a derogatory name which the Mohawk historically applied to neighboring Algonquian-speaking tribes. When food was scarce, the Algonquians would eat the inside of the bark of the white pine. The Mohawk word is composed of several morphemes, as is usual in the language:
lati-, third-person plural masculine agent prefix; -
lonta-, incorporated noun root for 'bark'; -
k-, verbal root for 'eat'; -
s, active state aspect suffix.
The word carries stress on the third syllable: [ədɪˈɾɔndəks]. A common nickname for the area is "the Dax".
Tourism and recreation
Lake Placid,
Lake George,
Saranac Lake,
Schroon Lake and the St. Regis Lakes.
Although the climate during the winter months can be severe, with absolute temperatures sometimes falling below −30 °F (−35 °C) pre wind chill, a number of
sanatoriums were located there in the early 1900s because of the positive effect the air had on
tuberculosis patients. The heavily forested region is the most southerly distribution of the boreal forest or
taiga in the
North American continent. The forests of the Adirondacks include
spruce,
pine and broad-leafed trees. Lumbering, once an important industry, has been much restricted since the establishment of the State Park in 1892.
Hunting and
fishing are allowed in the Adirondack Park, although in many places there are strict regulations. Because of these regulations, the large tourist population hasn't overfished the area, and as such, the brooks, rivers, ponds and lakes are well stocked with
trout and
black bass. In Adirondack Park, approximately 260 species of birds have been recorded, of which over 170 breed here. Because of its unique
taiga habitat, the park has many breeding birds not found in most areas of
New York and other mid-Atlantic states, such as
Boreal Chickadees,
Gray Jays,
Bicknell's Thrushes,
Spruce Grouse,
Philadelphia Vireos,
Rusty Blackbirds,
American Three-toed Woodpeckers,
Black-backed Woodpeckers,
Ruby-crowned Kinglet,
Bay-breasted Warblers,
Mourning Warblers,
Common Loons and the
crossbills.
At the head of Lake Placid stands
Whiteface Mountain, from whose summit one of the finest views of the Adirondacks can be obtained. Two miles (3 km) southeast of this lake, at
North Elba, is the old farm of the abolitionist
John Brown, which contains his grave and is frequented by visitors. Lake Placid outflow is a major contributor to the
Ausable River, which for a part of its course flows through a rocky chasm 100 feet to 175 feet (30 m to 53 m) deep and rarely more than 30 ft (10 m) wide. At the head of the
Ausable Chasm are the Rainbow Falls, where the stream makes a vertical leap of 70 ft (20 m).
Another impressive feature of the Adirondacks is Indian Pass, a gorge about between Algonquin and Wallface Mountains. The latter is a majestic cliff rising several hundred feet from the pass. Keene Valley, in the center of the High Peaks, is another picturesque region, presenting a pleasing combination of peaceful valley and rugged hills.
July 4th, 2006, marked the dedication and opening celebration of
The Wild Center/Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks
. The 30 million dollar facility is in Tupper Lake, NY. The new museum, designed by the firm that built the Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC, has extensive exhibits about the natural history of the region. Many of the exhibits are live, including otters, birds, fish and porcupines. The Museum has trails to a river and pond on its campus.
History
Algonquian and
Mohawk Indians used the Adirondacks for hunting and travel, but they'd no settlements in the area.
Samuel de Champlain sailed up the
Saint Lawrence and
Rivière des Iroquois near what would become
Ticonderoga on
Lake Champlain in 1609, and thus may have been the first European to encounter the Adirondacks. Jesuit missionaries and French trappers were among the first Europeans to visit the region, as early as 1642.
Part of the
French and Indian War (1754-1763) was played out on the edge of the Adirondacks. The British built
Fort William Henry on the south end of
Lake George in 1755; the French countered by building Fort Carillon on the north end, which was renamed
Fort Ticonderoga after it was captured by the British. In 1757, French General
Montcalm, captured
Fort William Henry.
At the end of the 18th century rich
iron deposits were discovered in the
Champlain Valley, precipitating land clearing, settlement and
mining in that area, and the building of furnaces and forges. A growing demand for timber pushed
loggers deeper into the wilderness. Millions of
pine,
spruce, and
hemlock logs were cut and floated down the area's many rivers to mills built on the edges. Logging continued slowly but steadily into the interior of the mountains throughout the 19th century and farm communities developed in many of the river valleys.
The area wasn't formally named the
Adirondacks until 1837; an English map from 1761 labels it simply "Deer Hunting Country." Serious exploration of the interior didn't occur until after 1870; the headwaters of the
Hudson River at
Lake Tear of the Clouds near
Mount Marcy were not discovered until more than fifty years after the discovery of the headwaters of the
Columbia River in the
Canadian Rockies of
British Columbia.
One consequence of the
American Civil War was that many people who might otherwise never have left their home town got to see a great deal of the country; as a result, interest in outdoor life and adventure travel became commonplace. Although sportsmen had always shown some interest in the Adirondacks, the publication of
William H. H. Murray's
Adventures in the Wilderness; Or Camp-Life in the Adirondacks in 1869 started a flood of tourists to the area, leading to a rash of hotel building and the development of
stage coach lines.
Thomas Clark Durant, who had helped to build the
Union Pacific railroad, acquired a large tract of central Adirondack land and built a railroad from fashionable
Saratoga Springs to
North Creek. By 1875 there were more than two hundred hotels in the Adirondacks, some of them with several hundred rooms; the most famous was
Paul Smith's Hotel. About this time, the "
Great Camps" of the Adirondacks evolved near Raquette Lake, where
William West Durant, son of Thomas C. Durant, built luxurious compounds. Two of them, Camp Pine Knot and
Sagamore Camp, both near
Raquette Lake, have been designated as National Historic Landmarks, as has
Santanoni Preserve, near
Newcomb, NY. Camps Sagamore and Santanoni are open to the public seasonally.
Romanticism had also played a part in popularizing the area, as mountains previously seen as dreaded and forbidding were celebrated by the
Romantics. Part of
James Fenimore Cooper's 1826
The Last of the Mohicans: A narrative of 1757 is set in the Adirondacks.
Frederic Remington canoed the
Oswegatchie River, and
William James Stillman, painter and journalist, spent the summer of 1857 painting near
Raquette Lake. The next year he returned with a group of friends to a spot on Follensby Pond that became known as the Philosophers Camp. The group included
James Russell Lowell,
Louis Agassiz,
Ralph Waldo Emerson and
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s brother John.
In 1873
Verplanck Colvin developed a report urging the creation of a
state forest preserve covering the entire Adirondack region, based on the need to preserve the
watershed as a water source for the
Erie Canal, which was vital to New York's economy at the time. In 1883 he was appointed superintendent of the New York state land survey, and in 1885 the Adirondack Forest Preserve was created, followed in 1892 by the Adirondack Park. When it became clear that the forces seeking to log and develop the Adirondacks would soon reverse the two measures through
lobbying,
environmentalists sought to amend the State Constitution. In 1894, Article VII, Section 7, (renumbered in 1938 as Article XIV, Section 1) of the New York State Constitution was adopted, which reads in part:
The lands of the State...shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shan't be leased, sold, or exchanged, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed.
The restrictions on development and lumbering embodied in Article XIV have withstood many challenges from timber interests, hydropower projects, and large scale tourism development interests. Further, the language of the article, and decades of legal experience in its defense, are widely recognized as having laid the foundation for the
U.S. National Wilderness Act of 1964. As a result of the legal protections, many pieces of the original forest of the Adirondacks have never been logged: they're
old growth.
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