I’m back in the Adirondacks, my home away from home and one of my favorite regions to write about. To give you a little taste of upstate New York, I’ve decided to dedicate this week to blogging about the area. The Adirondacks is the largest park of any kind in the lower 48 states. It is larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and Olympic National Parks combined. It is larger than the state of New Hampshire, larger than six other states. Its six million acres contains more than 2,800 ponds and lakes, 1,500 miles of rivers. Indeed, ninety percent of all plants and animals that exist north of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Mississippi River can be found somewhere in the Adirondacks. 

Yet, for several reasons, the Adirondacks and even the Catskills in the southern part of the state have remained a coveted secret cherished mostly by northeasterners. Like most tourism in New York State, it is overshadowed by the large metropolis that sits in the south. More importantly, unlike Yellowstone, Yosemite, or even Acadia on the Maine coast, the Adirondacks are a state park. It’s not even entirely government owned. Within the “Blue Line” delineating the State Park’s boundary is a mix of public and private lands. Thus, despite its immensity, the Adirondacks will never have the popularity or crowds that swell the national parks in summer.

Although it took 26 hours or more on railroads, stagecoaches, and steamboats to get to the Adirondack Mountains from New York City in the 1870s, the remoteness of this region proved to be more of an attraction than a deterrent. To make traveling more pleasurable, the wealthy elite, including J.P. Morgan, William Whitney, and Alfred Vanderbilt built their own private railway car, complete with brass railings, shower, card room, and bed. Eventually they would have to climb aboard a boat to get to their final destination. Guideboats, a little larger than rowboats, were used to escort visitors on the network of waterways that form a vast web of blue throughout the Adirondacks. Enter the Boats Building at the wonderful Adirondack Museum on a hillside overlooking Blue Mountain Lake and you can find birch-bark canoes and guideboats dating back to the 1840s.