“Life is too short to worry about what others say about you. Have fun, be yourself and give them something to talk about.” -Aunty Acid
This was our fourth trip to the Adirondacks and our longest stay. We spent the week with our family in a pretty house in the woods not far from Jay, NY. I usually only do one blog post on our trips together, but this time I’m going to break it up a bit. The Adirondacks deserve more attention than one post can give.
The Adirondack Park was established by the state of New York in 1892 to protect the region’s vast forests and vital watersheds from rampant logging. It was also established for “the free use of all the people for their health and pleasure”. At 6.1 million acres, it’s the largest park in the contiguous United States. Unlike a national park, the Adirondack Park is a patchwork of public and private lands, governed by special state provisions to balance conservation with the needs of the communities.
The park contains 46 High Peaks, 2,800 lakes and ponds, 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, an estimated 200,000 acres of old-growth forests and is home to 105 towns and villages. The park makes up approximately one-fifth of the entire area of the state of New York. The Adirondacks also have the largest system of hiking trails in the country. With more than 2000 miles of trails wind through this amazing wilderness. There’s something for everyone in this unbelievably beautiful park.
On our way from Montreal we stopped in Rouses Point for lunch. This was our entry point back to the US in 2012. We checked out the marina we stayed at and then moved south to the Ausable Chasm. The chasm is a scenic gorge carved by the Ausable River near Keeseville, New York, sometimes referred to as “the Grand Canyon of the Adirondacks”. It’s one of the oldest natural attractions in North America, opening to the public in 1870. We wanted to visit this amazing spot on our trip to Lake Placid last summer but the area was a bit flooded at that time. Just seeing it from the bridge is all we were able to do on this trip too. It’s beautiful and one day I hope we can explore it a bit more.
Our final stop before checking into our house was the Jay Covered Bridge. The bridge spans the east branch of the Ausable River. The original bridge was built in 1857. We spent two days playing in this beautiful spot.
We could literally watch the foliage changing colors before our eyes while we were here. The top photo was taken at the covered bridge on Sunday…the bottom photo was taken on Wednesday.
The first day of our vacation we hiked through High Falls Gorge. It’s a 22 acre privately owned nature park along the Ausable River. This park was opened in 1890’s offering a safe trail to view the narrow granite walls of the gorge with four spectacular waterfalls. We hiked the gorge trail and then returned to the entrance by way of the nature trail. After our workout we drove into Lake Placid for lunch.
Lake Placid is beginning to see some beautiful colors.
Whiteface Mountain is the high peak on the right.
