Forever Wild: A Unique Park

People throughout New York State are proud of their parks in general and the Adirondack Park in particular. The fact that the Adirondacks is a state park as opposed to a national park is significant for a number of reasons, and makes this place unique among parks. However, before I get into further discussion about why I believe this is so, lets review some basic data and fun facts about the Adirondacks.

Largest Park in the Contiguous Untied States

With the exception of Wrangell - St. Elias and Gates of the Arctic national parks, both in Alaska, at 6.1 million acres, the Adirondack Park is the largest park anywhere in the United States. The seven most frequently visited National Parks in the United States (Great Smoky Mountains, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Olympic, Rocky Mountain, Zion) have a smaller combined size than the Adirondack Park. Here are a few other interesting size comparisons:

• The Adirondack Park is larger than any of the five smallest states in the United States: Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire.
• Only five out of 16 states in Germany are larger than the Adirondacks (Brandenburg, North Rhein-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, Lower Saxony and Bavaria).
• At 23,180 km² Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is most similar in size to the Adirondacks (24,281 km²).
• Germany's largest state, Bavaria, is just under 3 times the size of the Adirondacks.
• The Adirondacks is just under half the size of Bosnia and Herzegovina (51,209 km²)

To put the size into perspective, I plotted a few German cities onto a map of the Adirondacks.

Three German cities superimposed on map to approximate similar distances

If the estimation of 10 million visitors per year is correct, then the Adirondacks has more visitors per year than any of the national parks in the United States. Interestingly however, it does not have the name recognition - at least not among Europeans - of any of the most famous National Parks, such as Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Great Smoky Mountains, Yosemite, Death Vally and the like. Depending on your point of view, that is either a pity or a blessing, but those who don't know are missing out on the beauty and recreation that this park has to offer.

Lots to Do, lots to see

Let's get this out of the way, Mt. Marcy, the highest point in the Adirondacks at 5,343 ft (1,629 m), is not on the same league, vertically speaking, as many other famous mountain ranges, such as the Himalayas (29,029 ft), the Alps (15,780 ft) or the Rocky Mountains (14,440 ft). Regardless, unless you are singularly interested in testing your breaking point doing extreme climbing, you will find an outdoor adventure or hiking challenge in this park suitable to any skill level. Here is a brief overview of what you will find here:

• 46 mountains (more or less) with peaks above 4000 ft. (My earlier post explains what I mean by "more or less.")
• The 11 highest mountains have alpine summits above the timberline.
• There are more than 2800 lakes and ponds.
• There are more than 1500 rivers fed by an estimated 30,000 brooks and ponds.
• More than 2000 miles of hiking trails of all levels of difficulty provide the largest trail system in the United States.

Fun Facts

• The word "vacation" is said to have it's origins in the Adirondacks. The super-wealthy of the Industrial Age, the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, et. al, built "great camps" in the Adirondacks, "vacating" the cities during the summer months.
• Lake Placid was the only place in North America to host the Winter Olympic Games twice (1932, 1980) and one of only three places to so. The other two were Innsbruck, Austria (1964, 1976) and St. Moritz, Switzerland (1928, 1948)
• The Adirondacks is the largest area within New York State without any cities. (The largest population centers are villages.)
• Old growth forests cover more than 100,000 acres of public land. (I don't have the stats, but theoretically a similar amount is within the park on private land. A further explanation of why this is plausible follows.)
• The Adirondack Mountains are growing faster than the Himalayas, at a rate of one foot every 100 years.
• The park has roughly 130,000 full time residents and 110,000 seasonal residents, who share the park with an estimated 10 million visitors.

Wait, residents? People live in the park?

The fact that the Adirondacks is home to a significant number of private citizens brings me back to my point about why the Adirondacks are unique and the fact that it is a state park plays a defining role in this. Together with the Catskill Forrest Preserve, also in New York, the Adirondacks are the only constitutionally protected forest lands in the United States. This is also part of the mythology of the Adirondacks, making it a special place for visitors and residents alike.

The lands of the state, now owned or hereafter acquired, constituting the forest preserve as now fixed by law, shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed. (Article 14 of the NY State Constitution) 

Source: Wikipedia

However, the fact that the Adirondack Forest Preserve exists and is protected by the New York State Constitution does not in and of itself explain how it is that people can live here. The Adirondack Park is an area delineated by an outer boarder called the "blue line" which is made up of areas with different classifications, and slightly more than half of the 6.1 million acres is actually private land. The entire park is divided up like this:

Source: Adirondack Park Agency

Represented on a map, the utilization of the park looks like this:

Source: Adirondack Council

The Adirondack Park is thus a patchwork quilt of private and public land. While it is true that the Adirondacks and the Catskills enjoy the highest degree of protection of wild lands in any state, the cause is not as singularly noble as it may sound. The origin of this protection was in fact very pragmatic and served to protect commercial interests. The forests in the park were heavily logged during the time after the Civil War, and the state's business community began to fear that this could cause erosion and make the Erie Canal unnavigable through silting. In retrospect and particularly considering the United States, nowadays it is a very quaint idea to think that such a monumental act of environmental protection came about as the result of a political initiative serving to protect business interests.

Also, the protection of the park is the subject of much controversy. On the one hand, it is probably safe to say that the private lands in the Adirondacks and the Catskills are subject to the most stringent development restrictions anywhere in New York State, further challenging prosperity in an area prone to economic depression even without such restrictions. On the other hand, the Department of Environmental Conservation which manages both the Adirondacks and the Catskills, as well as the Adirondack Park Agency, charged with performing long range planning for the future of the Adirondack Park, have both fulfilled their functions - how shall I say - inconsistently over the years. As with any public service agency, operations are very much dependent on the funding and staffing they receive, and both of these variables have been manipulated to varying effects in relation to the political persuasion of the state's government over time. For an in-depth discussion of this issue, I recommend Paul Schneider's book "The Adirondacks: a history of America's first wilderness" Also, anyone interested in learning more about life in the Adirondack Park, including how this legal framework has an impact both on humans and nature, should definitely visit the Adirondack Museum.

In his book "Adirondack Life and Wildlife in the Wild, Wild East," Ed Kanze also discusses the uniqueness of the Adirondacks and puts it into the context of the competing philosophies of the naturalists John Muir and John Burroughs. Kanze explains that Muir believes nature is best protected when humans are kept away, but himself feels aligned with Burroughs' hypothesis. Burroughs argues that humans are of nature as opposed to being apart from it. Accordingly, the ideal state would be to live in harmony with nature as opposed to separate from it.

Kanze continues, explaining that Muir's thinking is what gives rise to the cathedral like setting which can be found in any of the national parks in the United States. These are places where entry is regulated - usually with an admission fee and often limited in numbers - activity is limited and supervised by the priests, ...err... that is rangers, of the parks. The Adirondacks, on the other hand, is very much of the Burroughs school. It is a place where people live and earn their livelihoods. The "blue line," which delineates the park's outer perimeter, is entirely permeable. You can cross it at cruising speed on the road, casually noting a signpost. Or, if you enter by ferry over lake Champlain, you have already entered the park prior to the boat docking on the New York side. The theme of living as part of nature is returned to several times in Kanze's book. Indeed it is the very foundation of many of the premisses in it and also of his own livelihood in the Adirondacks as well as that of his family.

Source: panoramio.com

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