I thought of all the sugar maple trees who sap makes one of my all time favorites, maple syrup. This time of year they’re budding beautiful red flowers that pop against the blues sky. Come fall I will argue anyone that they are the prettiest of trees with their mixed coloured leaves of bright reds, yellows or oranges, dependent on the weather patterns.

Next was a specific Sumac tree that grows right along the edge of the field and backwoods of my property. Something years ago caused the trunk to grow crooked, resulting in the perfect lounge seat to layback in and watch the sky above, while you listen to the breeze through the forest trees and the birds calling to each other.

But then there are the pine trees up north that I love pausing and looking straight up through the rough red bark and green edges reaching high up towards the sun. I remember back to trail riding horses with friends and tilting my head up as we rode along. Or hiking and stopping to see how much of my camera could pull into the lens and capture the magical scene, it’s never quite right, no matter the lens. Or the soft needles of the hemlock, will they be able to survive the Woolly Adelaide, sucking the moisture from them and killing them within 5 years of their initial infestation?

Or maybe it’s the ancient hickory grove with the two track down the middle at one of my favorite local spots where I’ve horseback rode, hiked, skied and snowshoed.

Or there is one, lone, gigantic tree next to a road I used to drive regularly to work. It’s large and stunning, no matter the season, standing guard between two old canal villages. I have lots of pictures I’ve snapped of that one as I drove past over the years.

Lastly, my little young fruit trees in my back yard. The flowers scenting the spring air with the promise of apples, cherries, peaches, pears, and plums.

I’m sure tonight as I drift off to sleep I will remember more I will regret not including. For this Arbor Day, I cannot pick just one. I love too many trees and there are too many memories tied to trees to pick just one.

On August 1, 1918, Herb Clark guided Bob, George, and their friend Carl Poser on a hike up Whiteface Mountain. At home in Manhattan, during the winter of 1920/1921, Bob and George hatched the plan to climb the Adirondack peaks over 4000 feet. In the summer of 1921, back at their summer camp on Lower Saranac Lake, they shared their plan with Herb, and he agreed to guide them through this challenge. It took a few summers, but they completed their challenge on June 10, 1925, on Mount Emmons. Bob was 24, George was 21, and Herb was exactly a month shy of turning 55 years old.

Unlike today, when even the herd paths are quite easy to follow to unmarked summits, only 12 summits had established trails. The remaining 34, the trio completed as bushwhacks! Herb Clark had a talent for making it up unmarked summits quickly and efficiently.

“He was the fastest man I have ever known in the pathless woods. Furthermore, he could take one glance at a mountain from some distant point, then not be able to see anything 200 feet from where he was walking for several hours, and emerge on the summit by what would almost always be the fastest and easiest route."

- One of the Marshall Brothers on Herb Clark’s skills (I’ve seen the quote attributed to both Bob and George).

Bob and George’s time in the Adirondacks shaped much of their life’s work. Bob received degrees in forestry and plant physiology and went on to work for the US Forest Service, spending significant time in Alaska. In 1935, he helped found The Wilderness Society. Bob suffered a fatal heart attack in 1939 on a train back to NYC to visit family at the age of 38. He left a long-lasting legacy across the United States. In Montana, there is the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area (established in 1940), The Gates of the Arctic National Park (established in 1980), is named after what Bob Marshall called the area back in 1929, and in his home state, in the Adirondacks, the Bob Marshall-Oswegatchie Wilderness (established in 1990).

Bob was known for his grueling mileage days, and if you want to experience one of his legacies, you can complete the Bob Marshall Traverse. It covers 32 miles, 15,000 feet of elevation gain, and 14 peaks, in 24 hours! And I can’t get enough of his quote about this achievement.

Thus I have carried a little farther the fantastic pastime of record climbing, adding three to Malcolm's total of eleven.... In fact, it would fit perfectly in a class with flagpole sitting and marathon dancing as an entirely useless type of record, made only to be broken, were it not that I had such a thoroughly glorious time out of the entire day.

-Bob Marshall

George worked as an economist and constitutional lawyer. He was dedicated to environmental conservation. He was on the board of directors and served for a time as president of The Wilderness Society; he was a founding member of the Adirondack Mountain Club; and he served in numerous capacities, including president of the Sierra Club. In 1950, George spent three months in federal prison for contempt of Congress because he refused to turn over papers from the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties to the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

My favourite of the trio, I think, is Herbert Clark. He seems like he was a larger-than-life character in everyone’s stories of him. As a young man, he worked hard and played hard. The stories go that he worked farm jobs from sunup to sundown and could then be found at the local watering hole partying well into the night. For five summers, he rowed the freight boat, sometimes loaded as heavy as 2,200 lbs, the 24 miles between Bartlett’s and Ampersand and back in the morning and then guided in the afternoon! He held the record for rowing the most miles in a day, hitting 65 miles. He was one of the top paddlers in the local Saranac races, beating people half his age. He was known for his sense of humor and his fish tales. For 30 years, he had a mountain named for him, Herbert Peak. However, it was determined that geographic spots couldn’t be named after living people, and upon the death of Bob Marshall, it was renamed to Mount Marshall. Herb died in 1945 at the age of 74.

I decided for today’s commemoration, I’m focusing on the BIG National Parks that I’ve been to. Here’s the list:

• Acadia National Park (Maine)

• Denali (Alaska)

• Glacier Bay (Alaska)

• Grand Canyon (Arizona)

• Great Smoky Mountains National Park (Tennessee)

• Kenai Fjords (Alaska)

• Mammoth Cave (Kentucky)

• Petrified Forest (Arizona)

• Rocky Mountain (Colorado)

• Sagurao (Arizona)

• Shenandoah (Virginia)

• Virgin Islands (St. John, USVI)

Virgin Islands National Park was my most recent NPS visit. It is absolutely gorgeous and I would go back in a heartbeat. The water is crystal clear, and the hiking offers beautiful views. I saw a mongoose and snorkeled with sea turtles.

Even though I have so many places to visit on my list, I wouldn’t hesitate to go back to any of the National Parks I’ve already been to, they’re all such beautiful and unique spots. I’ve revisited Rocky Mountain N.P., Grand Canyon N.P., and Petrified Forest N.P., all twice, once as a kid and once as an adult.

Photo Highlights of Virgin Island National Park, St. John, USVI (February 2022).

#NationalParkWeek

First off, I’m glad I have a truck. Since they put in a new bridge and parking lot a few years ago, I thought the road would be plowed, but I learned it has remained a seasonal road. While it was well-traveled, it was still very snowy and slippery. I would not recommend driving out there unless you have a 4-wheel drive vehicle and good snow tires. Usually, I take a backway onto the island, there’s a closed bridge that you can no longer drive over but it’s still sturdy for walking.

Second, you may want to pack some hunter orange. There were way more hunters out for it not being a major hunting season, which surprised me, as I usually meet very few people there during the winter time.

I did just under a 4-mile loop on the southern end of the island. There’s some fascinating history on this 3,500-acre island in the middle of the Seneca River. Some stories include it being Haudenosaunee hunting grounds, a hideout for a horse thief gang, and a POW camp.

Today’s goal was to make sure the skis and my legs were ready for a longer distance than the mile loop I’ve been doing in the field and woods. And I was hopeful for some wildlife sightings. I saw lots of tracks in the snow (deer - including a very big buck based on his dew claw tracks, squirrels, foxes, birds, and even a domestic cat). Some hunters I passed said they kicked up a coyote when they first got there this morning. I was feeling disappointed with my only wildlife sightings being songbirds, a great blue heron, a red-tailed hawk, and snow tracks. I was really hoping for an owl as I’ve seen them there before.

As I came down a hill towards the last pond I would pass for the day I paused to take a video of the icy pond. I scanned one direction over the desolate snowy scene and scanned back with my camera. Wait, there was something on the ice that was NOT there when I started filming! Was I just not paying attention? It was an animal of some kind. Maybe not, it’s not moving, wait yes it did move, no it’s just a dead tree stump in the pond I wasn’t paying attention and missed it when I first started to film, and now my imagination is turning it into something it’s not. No, wait, I’m sure it moved this time.

I’ve always thought it was muskrat huts in that pond but that’s way too big for a muskrat. Ok, let me ski slowly to get a different angle. Could it be a beaver? I think it’s a beaver. Maybe it’s a muskrat, can they get that big? I’ve only seen small ones, is this a ginormous muskrat? And then it heard me and it WAS a beaver and dove quickly and silently through the hole in the ice and back into its lodge. WOW! I just saw a live beaver, in the wild, in the winter! I watched it snacking while sitting on the ice edge for a good 5 minutes while I argued with myself what I was seeing before it saw me and took off home.

On the drive home, a bald eagle soared across the road as I turned onto my street. Last night as I was reading in bed I kept hearing a noise outside. I cracked the window to hear better. It was owls calling back and forth to each other. My day is now complete.

Where would you pick and why? What is your favourite outdoor area or zone? The place you love so much you could play outside there the rest of your life and be perfectly content?

For me, it’s the Adirondack Park in New York State.

Mountains, check.

The Adirondack Mountains are made up of over 100 peaks.

Lakes, Rivers, Ponds, Waterfalls, check, check, check, and check.

There are over 3,000 lakes and ponds, and more than 25,000 miles of rivers and streams.

Firetowers, check.

Of the original 57 Adirondack fire towers, 34 are still standing.

Hiking, Camping, Rock Climbing, Ice Climbing, Skating, Snowshoeing, Skiing (nordic, downhill, and backcountry), Snowboarding, Biking (Road, Gravel, Mountain), Snowmobiling, Fishing, Hunting, Birdwatching, Paddling, White Water Rafting, Boating - keep those check marks coming.

Olympic sports, the Adirondacks have that too! Ski jumping, bobsled, luge, skeleton.

Lake Placid has hosted the Olympics TWICE and they’re the backup location for the next Winter Olympics if Italy isn’t wintery enough! They also host one of the toughest Ironman Triathlons every July.

At 6 million acres the Adirondack Park can fit Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Glacier National Parks combined within its borders! It’s made up of a mix of public and private lands with the state Department of Environmental Conservation managing 4.8 million of those lands. There are over 2,000 miles of hiking trails, and dozens of adventure challenges (some of them with patches), including the most coveted the ADK 46-R. A 46-R is a person who has climbed all 46 high peaks over 4,000 ft in the Adirondacks.

New York State designated the park to be maintained “forever wild” way back in 1894! The goal was to conserve the land, waterways, and forests so they could be enjoyed by all then and into the future.

I’m grateful to the politicians, outdoorsmen, outdoorswomen, and the people of NYS who had the foresight to protect the Adirondacks and ensure they stay Forever Wild for all of us.

And now for the best welcome sign ever that you will see at all main points of entry into the Adirondack Park: