Adirondack Mountains

Adirondack Mountains
The Adirondack Mountains seen in winter
Highest point
Peak	Mount Marcy
Listing	Canadian Shield
Coordinates	44°06′45″N 73°55′26″W / 44.11250°N 73.92389°W / 44.11250; -73.92389
Geography
The Adirondack province of the Appalachian Highlands physiographic region, based on USGS classification.
Country	Grenville Orogeny
Age of rock	Tonian

The Adirondack Mountains (/ædəˈrɒndæk/; ad-ə-RON-dak)^[1] are a massif of mountains in Northeastern New 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, including Mount Marcy, which is the highest point in New York at 5,344 feet (1,629 m). The Adirondack 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 are Lake George, Lake Placid, and Lake Tear of the Clouds. The region has over 1,200 miles (1,900 km) of river.^[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 a hotspot beneath the region, which causes continued uplift at the rate of 1.5–3 centimetres (5⁄8–1+1⁄8 in) 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 the Appalachian Highlands physiographic division.^[4] It is bounded by three other provinces: the St. Lawrence (Champlain) on the north, northeast; the Appalachian Plateau to the south, southwest; and the Valley and Ridge to the southeast.

The entire region lies within Adirondack 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]

Etymology

The word Adirondack is thought to come from the Mohawk word ha-de-ron-dah meaning "eaters of trees". The earliest written use of the name was in 1635 by Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert in his Mohawk to Dutch glossary, found in his Journey into Mohawk Country. He spelled it Adirondakx and said that it stood for Frenchmen, meaning the Algonquians who allied with the French.^[6] Another early use of the name, spelled Rontaks, was in 1729 by French missionary Joseph-François Lafitau. He explained that the word was used by the Iroquois 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, including Achkokx, Rondaxe, and Adirondax.^[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 simply Deer Hunting Country. In 1838, the mountains were named Adirondacks by Ebenezer Emmons, the State Geologist for the northern New York State Geological District.^[8]

History

Humans have lived in the region of the Adirondack Mountains since the

Over the next 11,000 or so years, the region's climate slowly warmed, and forests began to replace the original tundra.[9] Transitioning from the Archaic Period to the Woodland period, multiple different cultures—Sylvan Lake, River, Middlesex, Point Peninsula, and Owasco cultures—replaced the Laurentian culture over time.^[10] By the time of the Owasco culture, around 0 AD, maize and beans were being cultivated in the Adirondack uplands.^[9]

The first Iroquoian peoples, the Mohawk (or Kanyengehaga) and the Oneida (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 to Haudenosaunee 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.^[10]

These were the groups that the first European explorers of the area encountered. European presence in the area began with a battle between

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."^[11] He clearly had the impression that native people did not live within the Adirondack mountains.^[9]

Because local Iroquoian and Algonquian tribes had been decimated first by smallpox and measles 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.^[9]

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.^[9] First the area was an inhospitable tangle, then a lucrative store of lumber.^[11] After the American Revolutionary War, New York State gained ownership of most of the land in the region.^[12]

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 massive deforestation.^[12] Later, the wilderness character of the region became popular with the rise of the Romantic 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 the Adirondack Park in 1885.^[11] In 1989, part of the Adirondack region was designated by UNESCO as the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve.^[13]

For the more recent human history of the Adirondack region, see Adirondack Park.

Geology

The rocks of the Adirondack mountains originated about two billion years ago as 50,000 feet (ca. 15,240 m) thick

• Harrisville
• magnetite and hematite, formerly mined at the Benson Mines,^[15] Lyon Mountain, Mineville, Tahawus, and Witherbee.
• graphite, mined near Hague and Ticonderoga.
• garnet, mined at the Barton Mine, north of Gore Mountain.
• anorthosite, visible in road cuts on the New York State Route 3 between Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake.^[16]
• marble
• zinc: The Balmat-Edwards district on the northwest flank of the massif also in St. Lawrence County was a major zinc ore deposit
• titanium was mined at Tahawus.

Note: the Adirondacks are uplifted by a hot spot in the Canadian Shield in contrast to other mountain ranges in New York which are a part of the Appalachian chain (not to be confused with the cultural region of Appalachia).^[17]

Around 600 million years ago, as

Starting about 2.5 million years ago, a cycle of

• Eskers: the Rainbow Lake esker bisects the eponymous lake and extends discontinuously for 85 miles (ca. 137 km). Another long discontinuous esker extends from Mountain Pond through Keese Mill, passing between Upper St. Regis Lake and the Spectacle Ponds, and continuing to Ochre, Fish, and Lydia Ponds in the St. Regis Canoe Area. A 150-foot-high esker bisects the Five Ponds Wilderness Area.^[20]
• Glacial erratics: there is a large one at the Newcomb
  Visitor Information Center next to the Rich Lake Trail.
• Kames
• Moraines
• The
  cirques that characterize the Whiteface Mountain
  .
• Outwash plains: St. Regis Canoe Area is an outwash plain pitted with kettle holes.

Soils in the area are generally thin, sandy, acidic, and infertile, having developed since the glacial retreat.

Climate

The climate is strongly continental, with high humidity and precipitation 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.

Ecology

The Adirondack Mountains form the southernmost part of the

The mountains include many wetlands, of which there are three kinds:^[16]

• swamps, any wetland including trees and shrubs.
• Pickerel weed
  often forms large colonies.
• sphagnum moss, orchids, and pitcher plants
  .

A small area on the highest peaks exists above the tree line and has an alpine 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 the Adirondack Mountain Club to preserve it.^[28]

References