Adirondack Geology: A SparkNote Equivalent

I’ve begun tonight’s reading with Geology of the Adirondack Mountains by James McLelland and Bruce Selleck.

Perhaps it was a mistake to begin my reading this way. It is already past midnight, and I’m just realizing how dense geology can be. McLelland and Selleck have produced a fairly thorough explanation for the shaping of the Adirondack landscape. Their writing is riddled with scholarly vocabulary, including a new unit of time, “Ma”, which signifies 1 million years, and scientific names for each phase and layer of Adirondack earth and rock. At this point, I have to be honest: I’m overwhelmed.

I’m the kind of person that needs to see the big picture before I delve into details. On the off chance that there’s someone else out there like me, I’m going to put together a condensed geographic history of the Adirondacks. Hopefully, in doing so, I too can get a general feel for the topic before digging deeper into the dialect of plate tectonics and glaciation patterns.

New York State’s Adirondack Park Agency actually provides a helpful overview of Adirondack geology. Their website gives a nice explanation which I will distill into a series of bullet points:

Landscape patterns:

-       The Adirondacks form a dome, 160 miles wide and 1 mile high – McLelland and Selleck describe this dome as “an egg with its major axis to the north.”

-       The mountains are made of ancient rocks which are more than 1,000 million year olds; however, the mountains emerged only ~5 million years ago.

-       Giant bodies of ice (glaciers) moved into the Adirondack region, picking up rocks as well as scraping  and smoothing the earth’s surface

-       The ice rounded the summits of mountains and deposited rocks all over the land as it melted

-       The rocks are called erratics (probably because their placement is somewhat erratic…)

-       These aforementioned glaciers were formed ~250 thousand years ago. The earth was slightly colder and snow did not completely melt in the summers.

-       The ice eventually became thousands of feet thick; the pressure of the ice softened layers of ice below, “causing it to flow like molasses.”

About Adirondack soil:

-       Adirondack soil is young (~10,000 years old)

-       Soil could only begin development once glaciers melted (unglaciated areas in US have older soil)

-       As with all soil, it is made up of rock particles, decayed organic matter, live organisms, and space for air + water

-       Soil is generally thin, sandy, acidic, and generally infertile and subject to drought

Anyway, hopefully this information can serve as a nice diving board for the litany of facts to come!

Source: "Geology of the Adirondack Park." Adirondack Park Geology. Adirondack Park Agency, n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.

 P.S. Here's a nice picture that explains "Adirondack Uplift"

Stream Hiking

The stream is shallow and the current mild, but my friends and I treat the hike as an epic quest. We slosh through the water whooping and yelling imaginary commands: a small band of explorers, average age of seven and a half. The chaperones have fallen back and are now halfheartedly trying to reign us in. Our water shoes slip on the wet rocks as we surge forward, no one's slowing down now; not when we're this close to the falls.

The falls are a small set of waterfalls that sit 3 miles upstream from Steve's house. There's an easy footpath that cuts the journey in half, but we always take the stream. The annual trip originally started out because Sammy once dropped his pack in the stream and we spent five minutes chasing it down the current. We realized that traveling by stream was much more exciting than the path, so we convinced our parents to outfit us with water shoes. 

Today there were five of us kids, Sammy (who lost his pack), Steve (who's house we start at), Amanda and Isabel (twins), Adam (my best friend) and me. Sometimes there are more, our hike has gained some popularity through the years and today some local hikers have joined our pack. We're slogging through the deep section when we hear the roar of the falls; the current has picked up significantly so we know we're close. From here it's a race; we churn through the water in an attempt to be the first one to reach the high rock peak at the top of the falls. I reach the base first, Amanda and Isabel in front of me having tripped over the same protruding rock. I pull myself up the rocks and then I'm standing at the top, looking back down the river. I can vaguely see Steve's house and the sign marking the Adirondack trail that they had posted. I feel elated at having reached the peak first. I had earned my spot here this view was my reward, on top of rubbing it in the faces of my fellow explorers. 

I took some liberties in describing the exact events, but I vividly remember these hikes I took as a kid. It was how I fell in love with nature. For my friends and I, the Adirondacks were a playground.

Exhausted and Elated

       The title says it all. I've just come home from my 46 peaks trip, the Santanoni Range (3 mountains in all). It was undoubtedly one of the most difficult things I've ever done as well as the most rewarding. Hiking more popular high peaks had not prepared me for the unmarked and unmaintained trails of this range. We ended up getting lost a comical amount of times, actually hiking 3 miles in the wrong direction at one point (which we could laugh at on the car ride home, but not so much on the trek back from the wrong turn). Thanks to the kindness of fellow hikers, we managed to get on the right track.
      The most difficult decision of the day came around 2:00, as we sat on the bald summit of Panther Peak and marveled at the field of mountains before us. We could see our third peak, Couchsachraga (Couch for short) in the distance. Summiting it would add another 3 hours of hard hiking to a trip that was already behind schedule. We had almost decided to call it quits when we heard, via email, that Couch was the last of the 46 peaks to be climbed. And then the decision became a no-brainer. We got home at 11:30, much later than expected and incredibly elated to have done our part of the 46 peaks trip goal. The ride home was a bit bumpy (I was severely dehydrated and so couldn't manage to eat the breakfast sandwich I so craved from Stewarts) but we made it home safe and sound. I even collected some Adirondack soil samples for the tasting pleasure of my classmates tomorrow!
         There's nothing like hiking in the park to remind you of the Adirondack's immensity. From the mountains' summits, one could see only a forest of beautifully colored trees and clear ponds, not a human-made structure in sight. This area of the high peaks wilderness is one of the least traveled areas and so we only encountered a few fellow travelers. Hiking through the dense foliage and looking over the mountains' expanse, I found it easy to be naive. How could humans ever hope to conquer such a place, especially where much of the land was protected? And truly, I haven't been quite able to let go of this optimism, despite our drive home through various Adirondack towns, each one a reminder of our species' impact upon the nature. This wilderness is vast and will heal itself, given the chance.

                                                           View from Santanoni Peak

Tourism and squalor in the Adirondacks

Driving through the park, it always strikes me how extravagance and poverty are so closely intertwined in the Adirondacks. Driving up to the High Peaks, I pass countless little shacks that pass for homes and depressing, empty storefronts; while hiking I pass the Ausable Club with its beautiful; golf course and manicured lawns, all complete with a majestic view of the High Peaks. The tourism industry is one of the greatest Adirondack economic advantages. I believe that one of the problems with this is that it tends to draw hordes of tourists to certain areas, while they eschew others.

Anyone hiking the Adirondack High Peaks last weekend surely encountered huge masses of other hikers. Keene Valley and Lake Placid are quaint little towns with multi-million dollar vacation homes scattered about. Drive a couple miles west and one will pass through Tupper Lake, with its many empty storefronts. Further south it gets even worse, as very few towns seem to be very prosperous at all. Keene Valley has the asset of world-class hiking, climbing, and skiing right on its doorstep, while Lake Placid has Olympic history as well. The problem is, these places get overcrowded (and in the case of the High Peaks, overused,) while awesome and beautiful places all over the Southern Adirondacks are ignored.

The good news is, some steps are being made to spread the wealth. Saranac Lake created the Saranac Sixer challenge, an attempt to bring more hikers to the lesser peaks surrounding the town. The Arietta Climbers and others have been developing many crags in the Southern Adirondacks, such as Lost T, Lost Hunter's, Shanty Cliff, and Crane Mountain. The hope is that maybe for every five climbers heading to the Adirondacks, maybe one will now visit Crane and its 200-plus routes instead of simply following the masses to Keene Valley and Chapel Pond Pass. It is inevitable that the places with the most spectacular (and developed) natural resources will draw the biggest crowds. However, I believe that the Adirondacks as a whole could benefit from spreading the wealth a little bit more.

Also, here are a couple photos from the Adirondacks this past weekend:

Manipulated Cycles

We have talked extensively in class about how cycles inform the history of the Adirondacks. We had talked about economic cycles of boom and bust, as well as the cycles of logging and reforestation, but all of these involved some sort of human influence. It was interesting, therefore, to read about the cycles that occurred naturally to create the landscape of the park, and those that still occur today. Porter talked about the way that nature destroys and recreates itself, specifically with erosion and uplift of mountainous regions. This cycle occurs, of course, over millions of years. Another example of one of these abundant, naturally occurring cycles is climate. Thousands of years ago, the ADKs were in a state of glaciation. As civilization began to appear, "the climate warmed to nearly modern temperatures by 7,500 years ago and by 4,500 years ago may have been warmer than today." (Porter, 31) In a continuation of this cycle, the climate should now be cooling again; falling towards this same state of glaciation once again. However "the advent of farming, clearing of forests, and animal husbandry may have helped" (Porter, 31) to maintain the climate at it's warmed state and prevent "a slide back into the glacial icehouse." (Porter, 31) And that's where the confusion begins. The same question of whether or not our presence is more important than that of these naturally occurring cycles comes to the forefront once again. By manipulating the climate, though not always consciously, we have given ourselves the ability to sustain our livelihood over a long period of time, without having to change our ways to adapt to a fall in temperature. But what are the longer term consequences of this manipulation on the environment? Will the mountainous uplift still occur in the same way even with our acceleration of the erosion process?

I seem to keep coming back to the same essential question. Can humans coexist with nature? And does our need outweigh that of the wilderness? I find this question frustratingly interpretive and impossible to answer. I think I need to make some sort of numerical scale with which to weigh each decision about human presence in the ADKs....But who even has the power to create that scale?

It's not your fault

Nutrient cycles are a beautiful thing. That is, when they work well. If there’s a malfunctioning part in the system, though, it doesn’t just disrupt the cycle at that point in time, but perpetuates and causes the cycle to fall apart.

The water cycle in the Adirondacks works great in some areas, but in others it's a mess. We’ve talked about how much acid rain is a problem in the Adirondacks, and in this era of pollution and climate change, we tend to attribute the problem to human involvement. And we’ve certainly done much to cause acid rain but have also helped to mitigate the problem by cutting back on gas emissions (sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides). But the reading on soil science mentioned an important thing to consider, which is that the environment isn’t really doing its part to help either. Through no fault of its own, the Adirondacks have a glaring lack of limestone or any other acid-neutralizing agent. This is the biggest breakdown in the water cycle. Once water is contaminated by VOCs (volatile organic compounds), there are no natural mechanisms to return the water to a balanced pH. Acid rain depletes any remaining base reserves, leaches mercury into the water, stunts tree growth, and then affects ecosystems downstream. That’s why the EPA is predicting that by 2040, 43% of the 2,800 lakes and ponds in the ADKs will have a pH below 5.0, which can be fatal to many common plant and animal species.

For once, the defects of the environment aren’t completely our fault. But that doesn’t mean we’re free of blame. For more info on acid rain and what steps you can take to help reduce it, take a look at: http://www.adkmuseum.org/acidrain/index.shtml.

What happens to the trees?

So I tried to follow up on my question in class about what happens to all the trees that are cleared when a big scale building project takes place. It just seems ridiculous to me that people jump through hoops all the time to try and cut down large numbers of trees for product but when they are cut down to clear the land the trees would just be scrapped. My extensive googling really didn't yield a lot of results, mostly just specific regulations of companies or what they are required to do with the scraps from these building projects as far as properly cleaning the land. They also had a lot of regulations about replanting the land. For example one source required replanting for "all new commercial and multi-family developments, new single family residential, building additions to non-SF residential that exceed 1000 square feet, new parking lots or expanded portion of old lots" etc. All of which I believe is a great idea but what about the trees that have already been cleared? I just believe sometimes we are too wasteful in cases like these. I know it takes a lot more thought and planning to consider what to do with the trees in a building project especially since they are considered the "waste" but at the rate we are clearing land and the amount of trees we need maybe we need to be more resourceful with "waste" materials. I would be really interested to know if there are any specific regulations in the Adirondacks for situations like these.