ADIRONDACK PARK, NY July 1, 2008 – If you are vacationing in the Adirondacks this summer and fall, don’t forget to take videos and capture “My Places in the Adirondacks” memorable moments.  Spot a bald eagle soaring above the timberline, witness an extraordinarily inspiring scene or catch your family singing campfire songs and share your experience with others for a chance to win $500 worth of GORE-TEX® gear.

Sponsored by the Adirondack Regional Tourism Council and W.L. Gore & Associates (inventors of GORE-TEX® and WINDSTOPPER® fabrics), the online contest features four submission categories: recreation; wildlife and pets; scenic beauty; family and friends.  Your video should be two minutes or less in length.

A finalist in each of the four categories will be announced on November 7, 2008 and each finalist will qualify for a chance to become the Grand Prize winner. In addition to popularity, judging criteria will include creativity, production value and entertainment value.  From November 7 through November 21, 2008, individuals may vote online for the Grand Prize winner who will receive GORE-TEX® gloves, footwear and hats valued at $500.

“My Places in the Adirondacks” video contest is open to all US and Canadian residents who are age 14 or over. The deadline for entries is October 31, 2008. The Grand Prize Winner will be announced on November 24, 2008. Individuals can submit an entry, vote and watch videos at VisitAdirondacks.com.

With more than six million acres, 3,000 lakes and 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, northern New York’s Adirondack Park offers some of the best opportunities in the United States for outdoor recreation in a superb natural setting.

The Adirondack Regional Tourism Council provides information about vacationing in the Adirondack region.  To plan your trip online go to VisitAdirondacks.com where you’ll discover a wide array of year-round activities, lodging packages, special events and an interactive trip planning map. Or, call 800-487-6867 for free travel information.

For any parent who has ever taken the kids on vacation - no matter how long the car trip or how great the destination - the back seat sentiment is usually an impatient, “Are we there yet” from the moment the car pulls out of the driveway. Luckily, the Adirondacks are right in your backyard and filled with interactive museums, events and attractions. Exploring and having fun are what the Adirondacks are all about. Kids won’t be the only ones asking “Are we there yet?”

• Enchanted Forest Water Safari in Old Forge is the state’s largest water theme park and has been providing safe, clean family fun for more than 50 years. Or, pop next door to Calypso’s Cove where kids can ride go-karts, play miniature golf and grab a snack.
• Hop a train on the Adirondack Scenic Railroad and help solve a “murder mystery,” stop bandits from robbing the train or take a magical trip the North Pole on the Polar Bear Express.
• Learn about Butterflies at the Adirondack Visitor’s Interpretive Center’s Butterfly House in Paul Smiths. View chrysalis, talk with a naturalist and explore the nature trails that wind around the center.
• At the Wild Center in Tupper Lake, kids get a truly interactive experience. Along the Living River Trail exhibit, watch otters gamble, journey through a bog, marsh, forest and lake. “Climb” to the summit of an alpine peak and touch the clouds.
• Walk along the tree canopy at the Adirondack Extreme Adventure Course in Bolton Landing. This high ropes course in the Adirondack wilderness has age-appropriate courses for kids and adults, along with zip lines and instructors to maintain safety.
• From soap making to basket weaving demonstrations, the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake is one of the most unique attractions in the Adirondack Park. Kids can help build a lean-to, enjoy a ride on the museum’s pond in a vintage skiff, wash clothes the “old fashioned way” on Wash Day, feed fish, and help raise a barn.
• At the Adventure Racing Family Fun Center in Lake George, go-karts, bumper cars, laser tag and arcade games abound. The center is available for birthday parties, and has an indoor race track and a paintball range.
• Take a trip around the Adirondacks in a hot air balloon with Adirondack Balloon Flights in Glens Falls. Soar above Lake George and enjoy the ride!
• Learn why Doctor Morbid became known as the mad wax maker at Dr. Morbid’s Haunted House in Lake George. Lots of scary fun for the whole family.
• For the alien enthusiast in the family, visit Lake George’s Alien Encounter museum and haunted research center, and have an up close and personal experience with extra, spooky terrestrials!
• At Avalanche Adventure in Lake Placid, it’s all about the outdoors. Enjoy miniature golf, rock climbing walls, indoor caves, and an arcade.
• Starting in July at the Olympic Jumping Complex, watch as athletes from around the world put on an amazing aerial show flipping and twisting into the 750,000 gallon pool during Wet and Wild Wednesdays. On Soaring Saturdays, watch Nordic skiers fly off of the 90-metere tower onto am artificial surface.
• Visit Fort Ticonderoga, a resorted military fortress and experience American history like never before. Throughout the summer, reenactments, guided tours and costumed interpreters allow visitors to step back in time.

The Adirondack Park, named for the Adirondack Mountains that lie within its boundaries, offers some of the best opportunities in the United States for outdoor recreation in a superb natural setting. The wilderness lands of the Adirondack Park are an outdoor-lover’s paradise and vacation packages offer a wonderful opportunity for visitors to sample all that there is to see and do in the region.

AN ARCHITECTURAL TOUR OF A GREAT RUSTIC TRADITION
SEPTEMBER 5 - 11, 2008

For one week in September, tour private and public camps of the Adirondacks, led by experts in the field of architectural history and preservation, and local historians. Our tour includes meals and accommodations and dining at the Minnowbrook Conference Center in Blue Mountain Lake, and the Crowne Plaza in Lake Placid.

If not always unique, resort architecture in the Adirondacks does possess distinctive architectural characteristics that have become closely associated with a regional rustic style. The phenomenon most identified is the “camp,” a loosely used term denoting a single-family residential compound as well as a recreational center for an organized group. “Camp” in the Adirondacks has been used much like “cottage” in Newport: a term of understatement, referring to a grand residence. However, ever since the term began to be applied to summer residences over a century ago, “camp” has meant anything its owners choose to so name.

Numerous camps possess a feature that separates them from most other forms of residential building in the United States – they are comprised of several buildings, divided more or less according to function. The archetypal configuration on an ambitious scale is to have one building devoted to gathering places for family and guests, sometimes called a lodge or hall; another for meals, cooking, and storage; a third for family quarters; others for guest quarters; recreational use; and others to house service functions and staff. The buildings are typically designed and decorated using a variety of native, rustic materials such as stone, logs, bark, wood shingles, and other wooden ornament so that the buildings seem to grow out of their forested landscape. This approach to design and site planning had aesthetic appeal because it allowed a complex to impart casualness in its layout and to have its components at a scale that seemed natural and in harmony with the environs. Perhaps more importantly, if fire occurred in one space, separation improved the chances that others would survive.

Exploring the Adirondacks: Itinerary

September 5
Arrival and pick-up at Albany Airport - welcome and introductions

September 6
Adirondack Museum – Here we will be given an introductory lecture by museum curators on the rustic tradition in the Adirondacks and see the Museum.
Camp Sagamore – Constructed between 1897 and 1899, Sagamore was the last and most ambitious of William West Durant’s camp building ventures, sequestered on its own lake amid a preserve of over 1500 acres.
Camp Uncas – Created between 1893 and 1895, Camp Uncas represents a decisive turning point in Durant’s career, when he undertook the development of enormous compounds, set in complete isolation. Like Sagamore, Uncas was situated on a preserve of approximately 1500 acres, with its own lake.

September 7
Big Moose Lake – This portion of the tour will explore the distinctive vertical half-log constructed architecture on Big Moose Lake, including the work of Henry Covey, his son Earl, and the Martin family. We will visit Big Moose Chapel and Manse, The Waldheim, Covewood Lodge, and Brown Gables.

September 8
Pine Knot – A Durant-designed camp, Pine Knot was in a state of more or less continual change, which can be divided into three primary campaigns: 1876-1877; 1879-1882; and 1889-1892.
St. Williams on Long Point – Built by Durant in 1890 to meet the needs of his Catholic workers, St. William’s is located on the opposite side of the Long Point peninsula that Camp Pine Knot housed Durant’s family.
W.W. Durant cruise on Raquette Lake – After visiting Pine Knot and St. William’s enjoy an afternoon lunch and narrated cruise on Raquette Lake.

September 9
Tupper Lake – Hemlock Ledge was designed by Julian Clarence Levi and built in 1906-1907 for Harry Levy, a distiller, and his wife Jeannette of Cincinnati, Ohio; details of the design and construction were kept in diaries that Levi kept. He also designed the next door camp for Sidney Pritz, a friend of Harry Levy and a fellow distiller from Cincinnati. We will also look at a more recently built camp, a contemporary interpretation of the rustic tradition.
Beth Joseph Synagogue – The exterior of the 1905-1906 Beth Joseph Synagogue, the only surviving early synagogue in the region, was outwardly articulated with Romanesque Revival features more typical of architectural fashion fifty years earlier, when the first great wave of Jewish immigrants began to arrive in northeastern American cities.

September 10
White Pine Camp – Situated on the eastern end of Osgood Pond, White Pine Camp served as President Calvin Coolidge’s 1926 Summer White House.
Prospect Point – Designed in 1904 by William L. Coulter, the first resident architect to establish a practice in the Adirondack region, for the Lewisohns, a prominent merchant family.
Eagle Island – Designed by William L. Coulter in 1903 for Levi Parson Morton, a banker by profession, who also served as Vice President of the United States, under President Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893), and later became the thirty-second governor of New York State from 1894 to 1896.

September 11
The Uplands – Built between c. 1907-1910 for Joseph Tilden Alling, the house is comprised of several connected buildings, the principal one of which contains an enormous all-purpose living hall at ground level.
Ausable Club – Opening in July 1890 as the St. Huberts Inn, the property was purchased in 1906 by the Adirondack Mountain Reserve for the Ausable Club, and over the nine ensuing decades, has remained the nerve center of the club. Among the hundreds of mountain resort hotels built in the United States during the late nineteenth century, this is a very rare example that stands largely in its original state.

Departure

Registration

Click here to download the Heritage Tour Registration form.

Please print the form, complete all information and mail to the address below including your deposit check for $300.

$1750.00 per person double occupancy
$2000.00 per person single occupancy

Non-refundable deposit of $300.00 due with registration.
Registration deadline and balance due: August 1, 2008

• Make check payable to Adirondack Architectural Heritage
• Please make any special needs (dietary, disabilities, etc.) known by calling (518) 834 9328 or emailing info@aarch.org

Mail this form with your payment to:

Adirondack Architecutral Heritage
1790 Main Street
Civic Center Suite 37
Keeseville, NY 12944

Adirondack Architectural Heritage
AARCH is the non-profit, historic preservation organization for the Adirondack Park. We offer marvelous day-long guided tours to the most intriguing places in the region, including its Great Camps, industrial and military sites, diverse communities and institutions.

We’ve got 12 hours of HD footage!

If you are planning to recreate in the Adirondacks this Thanksgiving Day weekend, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation asks you to please remember the following:

HIGH USAGE LEVELS: Visitors to the Eastern High Peaks Wilderness should be aware that trailhead parking lots and interior campsites will often fill to capacity on Thanksgiving Day/Columbus Day weekend. Please plan accordingly and seek backcountry recreation opportunities in other areas of the Adirondack Forest Preserve.

PLAN AHEAD AND PREPARE

• Know your physical abilities and the terrain you will be hiking - plan accordingly.
• Know the weather forecast - plan and prepare accordingly.
• Carry and use a map and compass
• Carry plenty of water (2 liters/person), high energy foods and needed medications
• Let someone know where you will be going and when you expect to return.
• Contact DEC Forest Rangers at 518/891-0235 to report lost or injured hikers.

COOL WEATHER: Cooler temperatures have arrived in the mountains. Night-time and morning temperatures in the single digits (C) may be experienced, especially in higher elevations. Be prepared before entering the woods.

• Pack extra non-cotton clothes, including a hat.
• Take off and put on layers of clothing to regulate body heat.
• Remember the sun sets earlier this time of year - so plan trips accordingly
• Carry a flashlight or headlamp and extra batteries.

HUNTING SEASON: Autumn hunting seasons for small game and big game are open. Hikers should be aware that they may meet hunters bearing firearms or archery equipment while hiking on trails. Please recognize that these are fellow outdoor recreationalists with the legal right to participate in these activities on the Forest Preserve. Hunting accidents involving non-hunters are extremely rare. Hikers may want to wear bright colors as an extra precaution.

BEAR RESISTANT CANISTERS: Regulation requires the use of bear-resistant canisters by overnight users in the Eastern High Peaks Wilderness between April 1 and November 30. NYSDEC encourages the use of bear resistant canisters throughout the Adirondacks.

OTHER BEAR AVOIDANCE TIPS

• Store all food, toiletries and garbage in bear-resistant canisters.
• If you are outside the Eastern High Peaks Wilderness you can use a food hang. Store all food, toiletries and garbage in the bag. Use a dark colored cord that is 25 meters long. Hang the bag 5 meters above the ground and at least 3 meters away from trees.
• Keep food in bear-resistant canister or food hangs at all times - take down only what is needed for cooking and eating.
• Never leave food unattended unless it is in a bear-resistant canister or in a food hang.
• Cook early, no later than 5 p.m., and never cook or eat in your sleeping area.

Visit the Adirondack Trail Information web page for current weather forecasts, regulations, safety tips, trail conditions, and more.

Enjoy your visit to the Adirondacks!

Courtesy of : New York State Department of Environmental Conservation