Millions More Now Know what’s Special about the Adirondacks

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. --- We know what’s special about the Adirondacks and that’s why we live here. Now millions more are learning about all there is to do in our little part of the world after picking up recent editions of USA Today and National Geographic Adventure Magazine.

Last week, the Adirondack Park made USA Today’s list of the top-10 Great Places on Earth You Don’t Want to Miss. The list, which also included Mount Kilimanjaro, Valley of the Kings, The Dead Sea, and Piazza San Marco, came out in anticipation of last Wednesday’s Earth Day.

Holly Hughes wrote of the six-million acre Adirondack Park in USA Today: "Much of the park's heart has been kept inaccessible to vehicles, preserving a slice of wilderness. The best way to appreciate it is to canoe through its quiet rivers and forested lakes. You'll see white-tailed deer, beaver, and, if you're lucky, you may spy a red fox or even a moose."

Shortly after more than two-million people read about the Adirondacks in USA Today, another two-million more read about the Park in the National Geographic Adventure Magazine’s listing of the 50 Best American Adventures. In the April/May edition, writers Jim Gorman, Robert Earle Howells and the magazine editors listed canoeing the Adirondacks fifth overall. The only other adventures that topped paddling our lakes, ponds and rivers were biking the Continental Divide Trail, kayaking Lake Yellowstone, rowing the Grand Canyon and climbing Mountain Rainier.

The writers added: “Nearly one-million acres have changed hands from private to public in the past ten years, including vital acquisitions that unlocked a grand flat-water paddling circuit nestled between the park’s marquee High Peaks and Five Ponds wildernesses. So new is this route that it has no official name and several of the portages, or "carries," are merely flagged with tape. With polished navigational skills and determination, paddlers enter a remote sanctuary where moose are staging a remarkable comeback, ferret-like fishers lope along lakeshores, and oversize coyotes, possibly crossbred with wolves, howl in the night.”

“The two articles speak to the fact that the Adirondacks are clearly a sustainable differentiator which will help our region get through these difficult economic times,” replied Lake Placid/Essex County Visitor Bureau president/CEO James McKenna. “For more than a century, our Adirondacks have allowed many visitors to recharge and refuel their minds and bodies.”

To read more about USA Today’s list of the top-10 Great Places on Earth You Don’t Want to Miss, click HERE, and to read more about National Geographic Adventure Magazine’s listing of the 50 Best American Adventures click HERE.