[Rockhounds] Adirondack Mountains Trip Report

[Carolyn Reynard]

Keigh, I enjoyed your Adirondack Mountains report. I live just a few hours
south in the Mid-Hudson Valley in Poughkeepsie.
There is one meadow east of Lake Placid that appears to be the base of some
of the Adirondack high peaks. For me that site has some of the wonder I feel
upon looking at the Rockies Front Range. I am originally from Kansas and
having a geologist father we traveled every summer I can remember as a kid
to Colorado  or Wyoming.

Yes, the Adirondack Park is well protected. There are some interesting
collecting  areas outside the Park.I have become more of an advocate of
protection after looking at a site in Bancroft Canada called the York Skarn.
The first time about eight years ago, the hillside was covered with calcite,
some blue, spessertine garnet, diopside, etc. a skarn.  A beautiful site.
The area now is protected but too late. Last year we visited again only to
find nothing of the skarn only smooth bedrock as if the rock had been licked
clean, every crumb of a mineral gone. There is another area in Wilberforce,
Canada, a fluororichterite site. It is a small exposure at road side. Two
years ago it was a good sized mound of calcite and fluororichterite
crystals. It was difficult to collect using the usual hammer and chisel, but
one was able to collect a medium sized specimen. Last year we visited the
site to find  a collector had taken a saw and drill to the mound and had
collected a large amount. I felt it has been vandalized just for the sake of
mineral sales.

I am a serious mineral field collector, an artist and a protector of the
environment and I do purchase minerals. It is very troublesome that there
are collectors who raid a site. Leave some for others to enjoy. It is a
difficult balance, I know.

Carolyn Reynard
Feldspar Collector

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kreigh Tomaszewski" <Kreigh at Tomaszewski.net>
To: "Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors"
<rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2009 1:57 AM
Subject: [Rockhounds] Adirondack Mountains Trip Report


> I got home tonight, as the sun set, from a 13+ hour drive from NY and
> am (still) trying to unwind. I'm downloading 22K+ email messages
> (mostly spam) for the third time (volume crashes computers). Trying
> (again, #@%$!) to share my trip report...
>
> We left early last Sunday morning and drove almost 15 hours from Grand
> Rapids (MI) to Raquette Lake (NY) - bad traffic in Canada - and finally
> got our tent set up at the Brown Tract Pond Campsite before dark.  I
> can highly recommend the campsite (but you need to take bear
> precautions).
>
> Monday we drove about an hour to Garnet Hill, near Ruby Mountain, to
> collect at the Hooper Garnet Mine. The local ski resort allows parking
> for the mine and the other public lands hiking trails. I brought down
> two small pack loads of garnet specimens down the half mile hike from
> the mountain top mine.  It was a step above collecting at the nearby
> Barton Mine for a fee.
>
> Tuesday we hiked to various waterfalls. I was camping with one of my
> sisters, who climbs mountains for a hobby.
>
> I injured my back the week before the trip (enlarged disk) and had to
> limit my activity. Wednesday we hiked from Brown Pond to Raquette Lake.
> My sister went on to a local mountain and had a knee problem.
>
> Thursday we decided to limit our activity, avoid the rain, and try to
> find the Opalescent River, where Labradoirite can be collected.  We
> found one specimen down-stream in the Hudson River, but did not find
> access short of a 7 mile hike (one way).
>
> But Thursday did find Tahawus;
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahawus,_New_York. It was a _very_ good
> day collecting.  I regret not making a second trip; my back is still
> very sore from what I carried out.
>
> Friday we visited the "Great Camp" Sagimore, and learned about where
> the words 'vacation'  and 'recreation'  came from.  I highly recommend
> the tour. We share the 'commons' as we experience the 'wilderness'
> during our collecting trips. The nominal fee was wel worth the hours of
> the tour.
>
> We all need to learn from from the experiment of the Adirondack
> Mountains. The NY constitution  preservers the pard as wilderness
> forever. If there is a bigger protected  park I am not aware of it.
>
> I had a great collecting trip.  I have had much to think about. It has
> been a great vacation! I got to escape the normal and do something very
>   different.
>
> Kreigh
>
> -- 
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