| Adirondack Mountains | |
|---|---|
 The Adirondack Mountains seen in winter | |
| Highest point | |
| Peak | Mount Marcy |
| Elevation | 5,344 ft (1,629 m) |
| Listing | |
| Coordinates | 44°06′45″N73°55′26″W / 44.11250°N 73.92389°W /44.11250; -73.92389 |
| Geography | |
 | |
| Country | United States |
| State | New York |
| Geology | |
| Orogeny | Grenville Orogeny |
| Rock age | Tonian |
TheAdirondack Mountains (/ˌædɪˈrɒndæk/AD-i-RON-dak)[1] are amassif of mountains in NortheasternNew York which form a circular dome approximately 160 miles (260 km) wide and covering about 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2).[2] The region contains more than 100 peaks, includingMount Marcy, which is the highest point in New York at 5,344 feet (1,629 m). TheAdirondack High Peaks, a traditional list of 46 peaks over 4,000 feet (1,200 m), are popular hiking destinations. There are over 200 named lakes with the number of smaller lakes, ponds, and other bodies of water reaching over 3,000. Among the named lakes around the mountains areLake George,Lake Placid, andLake Tear of the Clouds. The region has over 1,200 miles (1,900 km) of rivers.[3]
Although the mountains are formed from ancient rocks more than 1 billion years old, geologically, the mountains are relatively young and were created during recent periods of glaciation. Because of this, the Adirondacks have been referred to as "new mountains from old rocks." It is theorized that there is ahotspot beneath the region, which causes continued uplift at the rate of 0.6 to 1.2 inches (1.5 to 3 cm) annually.[3]
The Adirondack mountain range has such unusual characteristics compared to the area around it that it is divided into its own province within theAppalachian Highlandsphysiographic division.[4] It is bounded by three other provinces: the St. Lawrence (Champlain) on the north, northeast; theAppalachian Plateau to the south, southwest; and theValley and Ridge to the southeast.
The entire region lies withinAdirondack Park, a New York state protected area of over 6,000,000 acres (2,400,000 ha). The park was established in 1892 by the state legislature to protect the region's natural resources and to provide recreational opportunities for the public. It covers over 20 percent of New York state's land area.[5]
The word Adirondack is thought to come from the Mohawk wordatirǫ́·taks meaning "eaters of trees".[1] The earliest written use of the name was in 1635 byHarmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert in hisMohawk toDutch glossary, found in hisJourney into Mohawk Country. He spelled itAdirondakx and said that it stood for Frenchmen, meaning theAlgonquians who allied with the French.[6] Another early use of the name, spelledRontaks, was in 1729 by French missionaryJoseph-François Lafitau. He explained that the word was used by theIroquois as a derogatory term for groups of Algonquians who did not practice agriculture and therefore sometimes had to eat tree bark to survive harsh winters.[7]
The Mohawks had no written language, so Europeans used various phonetic spellings of the word, includingAchkokx,Rondaxe, andAdirondax.[7] Such words were strongly associated with the region, but they were not yet considered a place name; an English map from 1761 labels the area simplyDeer Hunting Country. In 1838, the mountains were namedAdirondacks byEbenezer Emmons, the State Geologist for the northern New York State Geological District.[8]
The Mohawks themselves referred to the mountains asTsiiononteskowa, meaning "big mountains." TheOneida meanwhile, used the wordLatilu·taks, which meant "They're eating the trees/beaver."[9]
The first humans to live in the Adirondacks werePaleo-Indians who arrived around the 14th millennium BC following the end of theLast Glacial Period. The earliest migrants arrived from theSt. Lawrence River Valley to the north, and settled along the shores of theChamplain Sea.[10] During theArchaic Period (8000–1000 BC) this semi-nomadic hunter-gathererLaurentian culture inhabited the Adirondacks; evidence of their presence includes aprojectile point of red-brownchert found in 2007 at the edge of Tupper Lake.[10]
During an interval of roughly 11,000 years following the end of the Last Glacial Period, the climate of the Adirondacks gradually warmed, with the area'stundra being replaced by forests that were now able to grow.[10] During the transition between the Archaic andWoodland (1000 BC – AD 1000) periods, multiple different groups replaced the Laurentian culture—including the Sylvan Lake, River, Middlesex, Point Peninsula, and Owasco cultures.[11] By the time of the Owasco culturec. 1 AD, maize and beans were being cultivated in the uplands of the Adirondacks.[10]
The firstIroquoian peoples, theMohawk (or Kanyengehaga) and theOneida (or Oneyotdehaga), arrived in the Adirondack region between 4,000 and 1,200 years ago. Both groups claimed the Adirondack Mountains as hunting grounds. According toHaudenosaunee historian Rick Hill, the region was considered a 'Dish with One Spoon,' symbolizing shared hunting resources between the groups. A group of Algonquian people, known as the Mahicans, also occupied the region, particularly the Hudson River Valley.[11]
These were the groups that the first European explorers of the area encountered. European presence in the area began with a battle betweenSamuel de Champlain and a group of Mohawks, in what is nowTiconderoga in 1609. TheJesuit missionaryIsaac Jogues became the first recorded European to travel through the center of the Adirondacks, as the captive of a Mohawk hunting party, in 1642.[7]
The early European perception of the Adirondacks was of a vast, inhospitable wilderness. One map of the area from 1771 shows the region as a blank space in the northeastern corner of New York. In 1784,Thomas Pownhall wrote that the Native Americans referred to the area as "the Dismal Wilderness, or the Habitation of Winter," and that the area was "either not much known to them, or, if known, very wisely by them kept from the Knowledge of the Europeans."[12] He clearly had the impression that native people did not live within the Adirondack mountains.[10]
Because localIroquoian andAlgonquian tribes had been decimated first bysmallpox andmeasles in the 1600s, then by wars with encroaching European settlers, there likely were very few people living in the region by the time Pownhall wrote his description. It is only relatively recently that numerous archaeological finds have definitively shown that Native Americans were indeed very present in the Adirondacks before European contact, hunting, making pottery, and practicing agriculture.[10]
The European impression of a wild region devoid of human connection set up a narrative about wilderness that would persist through the next 200-some years of the region's history. While society's perception of the Adirondacks' value changed, they were always seen as a land of natural resources and physical beauty, not of human history.[10] First the area was an inhospitable tangle, then a lucrative store of lumber.[12] After theAmerican Revolutionary War, New York State gained ownership of most of the land in the region.[13]
Needing money to discharge war debts, the government sold nearly all the original public acreage about 7 million acres for pennies an acre. Lumbermen were welcomed to the interior, with few restraints, resulting in massivedeforestation.[13] Later, the wilderness character of the region became popular with the rise of theRomantic movement, and the Adirondacks became a destination for those wishing to escape the evils of city life. Rising concern over water quality and deforestation led to the creation of theAdirondack Park in 1885.[12] In 1989, part of the Adirondack region was designated byUNESCO as theChamplain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve.[14]
For the more recent human history of the Adirondack region, seeAdirondack Park.
The rocks of the Adirondack mountains originated about two billion years ago as 50,000-foot (15,000 m) thicksediments at the bottom of a sea located near theequator.[15] Because ofplate tectonics, these collided withLaurentia (the precursor of modern North America) in a mountain-building episode known as theGrenville orogeny. During this time thesedimentary rock was changed intometamorphic rock. It is theseProterozoicminerals andlithologies that make up the core of the massif. Minerals of interest include these:
The Adirondacks are thought to be uplifted by a hot spot in theCanadian Shield, in contrast to other mountain ranges in New York which were created in theAlleghenian Orogeny and are a part of theAppalachian chain (not to be confused with the cultural region ofAppalachia).[18]
Around 600 million years ago, asLaurentia drifted away fromBaltica (European Craton), the area began to be pulled apart, forming theIapetus Ocean.Faults developed, running north to northeast, which formed valleys and deep lakes. Examples visible today include thegrabensLake George andSchroon Lake. By this time the Grenville mountains had been eroded away and the area was covered by a shallow sea. Several thousand feet of sediment accumulated on the sea bed.Trilobites were the principal life-form of the sea bed, andfossil tracks can be seen in thePotsdam sandstone floor of the Paul Smiths Visitor Interpretive Center.[17]
About 10 million years ago, the region began to be uplifted. It has been lifted about 7,000 feet (2,000 m) and is continuing at about 0.08 inches (2 mm) per year, which is greater than the rate ofdenudation. The cause of the uplift is unknown, but geologists theorize that it is caused by ahot spot in the Earth'scrust.[17] A recent study has revealed a column of seismically slow materials about 30 to 50 miles (50 to 80 km) deep beneath the Adirondack Mountains,[19] which was interpreted to be the upwelling asthenosphere contributing to the uplift of the mountains. The occurrence ofearthquake swarms near the center of the massif atBlue Mountain Lake may be evidence of this. Some of the earthquakes have exceeded 5 on theRichter magnitude scale.
Starting about 2.5 million years ago, a cycle ofPleistoceneglacial andinterglacial periods began which covered the area in ice. During the most recent episode, theLaurentide Ice Sheet covered most of northern North America between about 95,000 and 20,000 years ago.[20] After this the climate warmed, but it took nearly 10,000 years for a 10,000-foot (3,000 m) thick layer of ice to completely melt. Evidence of this period includes:
Soils in the area are generally thin, sandy, acidic, and infertile, having developed since the glacial retreat.
The climate is stronglycontinental, with highhumidity andprecipitation year-round. The Adirondacks typically experience pleasantly warm, rainy weather in the summer (June–August), with temperatures in the range of 66–73 °F (19–23 °C), cooler than the rest of New York State due to the higher elevation. Summer evenings in the Adirondacks are chilly, with temperatures ranging on average between 45–54 °F (7–12 °C). Winters (December–March) are long, cold, snowy and harsh, with temperatures ranging from 18 to 23 °F (−8 to −5 °C). Winter nights are frigid, with temperatures between −2 and 4 °F (−19 and −16 °C).[citation needed] Spring (April–May) and fall (September–November) are short transitional seasons.
| Climate data for Lake Placid, NY. Elevation: 2,054 ft (626 m) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Mean daily maximum °F (°C) | 23.4 (−4.8) | 24.6 (−4.1) | 30.7 (−0.7) | 44.8 (7.1) | 60.5 (15.8) | 67.9 (19.9) | 71.6 (22.0) | 70.6 (21.4) | 63.7 (17.6) | 50.3 (10.2) | 40.1 (4.5) | 30.6 (−0.8) | 50.3 (10.2) |
| Daily mean °F (°C) | 17.5 (−8.1) | 20.6 (−6.3) | 25.0 (−3.9) | 38.4 (3.6) | 49.9 (9.9) | 58.4 (14.7) | 62.3 (16.8) | 61.3 (16.3) | 54.7 (12.6) | 44.1 (6.7) | 34.5 (1.4) | 23.4 (−4.8) | 41.4 (5.2) |
| Mean daily minimum °F (°C) | 2.9 (−16.2) | 3.7 (−15.7) | 15.9 (−8.9) | 27.9 (−2.3) | 38.9 (3.8) | 48.9 (9.4) | 52.9 (11.6) | 52.0 (11.1) | 44.7 (7.1) | 32.6 (0.3) | 24.7 (−4.1) | 13.9 (−10.1) | 32.4 (0.2) |
| Averageprecipitation inches (mm) | 4.56 (116) | 3.98 (101) | 5.31 (135) | 5.40 (137) | 5.59 (142) | 5.79 (147) | 6.13 (156) | 5.29 (134) | 6.22 (158) | 6.97 (177) | 5.83 (148) | 5.22 (133) | 66.29 (1,684) |
| Averagerelative humidity (%) | 71.1 | 66.2 | 62.4 | 60.1 | 63.8 | 70.4 | 70.8 | 72.8 | 73.0 | 70.7 | 69.9 | 72.0 | 68.6 |
| Averagedew point °F (°C) | 10.7 (−11.8) | 11.1 (−11.6) | 16.8 (−8.4) | 26.5 (−3.1) | 38.3 (3.5) | 48.8 (9.3) | 52.7 (11.5) | 52.5 (11.4) | 46.2 (7.9) | 35.2 (1.8) | 25.7 (−3.5) | 15.7 (−9.1) | 31.7 (−0.2) |
| Source: PRISM Climate Group[22] | |||||||||||||
The Adirondack Mountains form the southernmost part of theEastern forest-boreal transitionecoregion.[23] They are heavily forested, and contain one of the southernmost distributions of thetaiga ecotype in North America. The forests of the Adirondacks includespruce,pine anddeciduous trees. Lumbering, once an important industry, has been much restricted by the creation of state forest preserve.[24]
The mountains include manywetlands, of which there are three kinds:[17]
Breeding birds include northern forest specialists not found anywhere else in the state, such asboreal chickadees,Canada jays,spruce grouse,black-backed woodpeckers,common loons andcrossbills.[25] Mammals includeraccoons,beavers,river otters,bobcats,moose,black bears, andcoyotes.Extirpated orextinct mammals that formerly roamed the Adirondacks include theeastern cougar,eastern elk,wolverine,caribou,eastern wolf, and theCanada lynx.[26] Attempted reintroductions of elk and lynx in the 20th century failed for numerous reasons, including poaching, vehicle collisions, and conservation incompetence.[27][28]
Nearly 60 percent of the park is covered withnorthern hardwood forest. Above 2,600 feet (790 meters), conditions are too poor for hardwoods to thrive, and the trees become mixed with or replaced bybalsam fir andred spruce. Above 3,500 feet (1,100 meters)black spruce replace red. Higher still, only trees short enough to be covered in snow during the winter can survive.
A small area on the highest peaks exists above thetree line and has analpine climate. These areas are covered by plants which occupied a large lowland tundra following the most recent period of glaciation. The amount of area covered by this ecosystem changes from year to year due to local climate changes, and has been estimated to only cover between 65–85 acres (26–34 hectares). The alpine ecosystem is considered extremely fragile, and was damaged by hikers prior to a 1970s campaign by theAdirondack Mountain Club to preserve it.[29]
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