It's also a place where, fifteen thousand years ago, glaciers were retreating and water was flowing everywhere. Fifteen thousand years is a long time in human terms but, it's almost too short to measure in the context of geologic time. The Adirondack region is a glacial landscape, still raw from the last advance of the ice. The mountains we see today are clothed in a forest that is still adapting to the climatic changes that have occurred since the last of the ice melted away.
But, landscapes like this exist elsewhere. What makes Adirondack region unique is constitutional protection that defines how the lands and forests are managed. The constitution of New York State established a forest preserve where the forests and water are protected. Political and economic sentiments are reeds in the wind, but the protections in the New York State Constitution are as permanent as any human institution can be.
Of the six million acres within the Adirondack Forest Preserve nearly half is owned by the public. Half of that public land is managed as wilderness with the rest protected, but still allowing for limited motorized access. Within the three million acres of privately owned land a significant portion is wild and the regional zoning rules imposed by the Adirondack Park Agency are either revered or reviled depending on what they have to say about the land that you actually own.
Ironically, the concentration of the region's high mountains in a relatively small area has created a stubborn overuse situation that has turned the regions largest formally defined wilderness into one of it's least wild areas.
Which leads to the purpose of this blog. Vast areas are infrequently or never visited and those are the places that I like to go. Let's poke around and explore places where the region's unique ecological, geological, and land use histories intersect. If this blog encourages a few hikers to try the trails less traveled that's a good thing. I'll be out there enjoying them either way.
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