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The Adirondack region of northern New York State is an outdoor recreation paradise. Whether exploring wooded trails and pathways or traveling the scenic byways between villages, the seat of a bicycle is the best place to enjoy miles of undeveloped forestland, numerous lakeside overlooks, breathtaking mountain vistas, and the colorful Adirondack communities that together define the Adirondack experience.
Lake Champlain, Quebec, Lake Ontario, and the St. Lawrence and Mohawk Rivers border the Adirondack North Country region. At the center is the six million acre Adirondack Park, a vast natural and scenic area featuring the Adirondack Mountains and the headwaters of the Hudson River. The Adirondack Park, roughly the size of Massachusetts, is the largest state park in the lower 48. With one million acres classified as Wilderness, it contains the largest concentration of designated wilderness east of the Mississippi River. The Adirondack Park also is unique among state and national parks because it is home to 130,000 permanent and 110,000 seasonal residents living throughout its rural landscape and in 135 hamlets and villages. The 2.5 million acres of public land within the Adirondack Park known as the Adirondack Forest Preserve is protected by the NYS Constitution.
The 6-million acre Adirondack Park is a unique patchwork of public and private lands protected by NY State law. The Adirondack Park is administered by two state agencies, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Adirondack Park Agency (APA). The DEC is responsible for protecting natural resources and the environment while managing the forest preserve and all recreational facilities on forest preserve lands. The APA develops long-range policy, creating both the State Land Master Plan and the Adirondack Park Land Use and Development Plan. The public lands are managed according to the policies and guidelines in the State Land Master Plan. The Land Use and Development Plan regulates activities on the 3.5 million acres of privately owned lands.
There are 3 major State Land Classifications: Wilderness, Wild Forest, and Intensive Use. Wilderness is the most restricted in terms of recreational opportunities, with use of motor vehicles and mountain bikes prohibited. A broader spectrum of recreational activities are allowed on Wild Forest lands, including use of mountain bikes and motorized vehicles. The APA defines Wild Forest this way: "A wild forest area is an area where the resources permit a somewhat higher degree of human use than in wilderness, primitive or canoe areas, while retaining an essentially wild character. A wild forest area is further defined as an area that frequently lacks the sense of remoteness of wilderness, primitive or canoe areas and that permits a wide variety of outdoor recreation."
About 1.3 million acres of Forest Preserve land are classified as Wild Forest, with most, but not all, trails in Wild Forest being open to mountain bikes. Many of the seemingly limitless mountain biking opportunities in the Adirondack Park are found on Wild Forest lands.
Plan ahead to assure safe, enjoyable, and environmentally sound outdoor travel. Adequate planning and preparation are indispensable if you want to accomplish trip goals safely and enjoyably, while simultaneously minimizing damage to the land.
Have a map and compass and know how to use them. A compass is an equally good tool for finding your way somewhere as it is for finding your way nowhere.
Know where you are going and stay on trails or have the advanced navigational skills necessary for off-trail travel. Good travel technique involves good group organization (keeping your group together), conserving energy, and safely maneuvering over varied terrain.
Have the necessary clothing and equipment to protect yourself and the environment. Ask the experts. When selecting and using clothing and equipment, consider all of the functions of your body in the outdoors. Ask the experts. Clothing and equipment are designed to protect your body and keep you comfortable. Layer your clothing, leave cotton garments behind, wear clothing that protects you, carry emergency gear and food, maintain equipment, and … ask the experts!
Maintain health through adequate hydration, a balanced diet, good hygiene, and knowledge of first aid. Adequate food and water keeps us warm, helps fight illness, allows the body to maintain itself properly, and helps us to keep a positive attitude. Good hygiene helps to prevent wound infections and avoid stomach illness caused by food spoilage, poor food handling, and waste contamination. Have some basic knowledge of first aid and carry a first aid kit. Drinking water must be boiled, treated, or filtered.
Please follow the Leave No Trace Principles of outdoor ethics.
The Adirondack Park Online Atlas of Mountain Bike Trails only provides introductory information. To gain the additional information required before you ride, maps and guidebooks should be consulted and further information should be gathered from chambers of commerce and bike shops in the Adirondack Park, and from the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation. Below you will find names of guidebooks and links to facilitate their purchase online. The guidebooks will suggest maps and other available resources.
Trail Numbering To increase the usefulness of the atlas, and due in part to the size of the Adirondack Park, the park has been divided into quadrants. The letters that initiate a particular trail number stand for the quadrant, or quadrants in a few cases, where the trail is located: in other words, SE10 is the number 10 trail in the southeast quadrant of the park.
Trail Names To standardize trail names for trails that appear in more than one guidebook and may have additional local names, trail names have been conceived that reflect the actual geographic features associated with each trail. Thus, a trail appearing in a guidebook as The Interminable Dismal Disaster might be renamed in this atlas as the Bloomingdale Bog Trail.
Other Users While specific trail descriptions in this atlas mention other users that may be encountered, mountain bikers may unexpectedly encounter motor vehicles, ATVs, horses, and hikers, as well as other bicyclists, on any or all of the trails described.
Terrain The Adirondack Park is roughly the size of the state of Vermont, and the variety of terrain is what you might expect to find in an area so large. From flat and level trails along former railroad beds, to dirt roads traversing rolling hills, to steep mountain trails filled with rocks and roots and stream crossings, the Adirondack Park has a little bit of everything for the mountain biking enthusiast. In addition to the terrain, climate and ecology are factors to consider, with the Adirondacks being considerably wetter and more densely vegetated than many other regions of North America.
Difficulty The difficulty rating given represents the highest level of difficulty to be encountered on a particular ride, and each trail is likely to have multiple levels of difficulty. While we use terms that are in common usage in other regions of North America, the terrain, climate, and ecology of the Adirondack Park are all very different from those other regions. What might be described as an easy, moderate, or advanced trail somewhere else may in fact be considerably more, or less, difficult in the Adirondacks.
Distance Please note that on a trail described as a "one way" trail, the distance would be doubled for the return trip along the same route.
Elevation Gain This is an indication of the total amount of climbing involved on a particular trail. Please note that on a trail described as a "one way" trail, the amount of elevation gain would be doubled for the return trip along the same route.
Trail Type This is a brief and simple description that includes terms such as dirt road, woods road, abandoned railroad bed, singletrack, and doubletrack.
Type of Ride This supplements the trail type with more general information about what to expect on a particular route, including terrain, geographic features, and forest cover. The map and information presented on this atlas are not sufficient or thorough enough to plan and implement a safe and enjoyable mountain bike ride.
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