What's Your Nature?
Become a Nature Up North explorer to share your encounters with wild things and wild places in New York's North Country. Post your wildlife sightings, landscape shots, photos from your outings, and even your organization's events!
Mohawk Valley Trading Company
The Mohawk Valley Trading Company offers the highest quality organic, unprocessed natural products they can produce such as maple syrup, maple sugar, honey, raw honey, comb honey, and beeswax candles.
Horseshoe Lake RR
This trek was along the Rail Road grade from Horseshoe south, to "the big rock". The views of the former Low's holding a great along here, especially the overlook above Hitchen's Pond. I parked at the end of the plowed road (RT 421) and snowshoed in from there. I did a short bushwhack just north of the Horseshoe Lake outlet and then followed the tracks south. Round-trip was 6 miles total.
CONEY MT
Coney is always a nice hike with some of the best views for your effort. The trail is hard-packed and microspikes were all we needed. This is part of the popular Tupper Lake Triad, along with nearby Goodman Mt and Mt Arab.
Positive Thinking Ice Climb (WI5-) on Poke-O-Moonshine Mountain
Positive Thinking is an Adirondack classic ice climb on Poke-O-Moonshine Mtn. It's roughly 500' long and rated WI5- on the water ice rating system. The first pitch is a climb up laminated slab to a belay below fat water ice, the true crux. Pitch one is often thin and prone to delaminating from the base rock; there was a death in the early 2000's when the ice collapsed as a climber was topping out. Thus caution and proper assessment of the route is critical. Sun is the enemy.
3rd Annual Winterfest Cardboard Sled Races!
Nature Up North is excited to be bringing back the Winterfest Cardboard Sled Races for a third year! Join us for a morning of sledding at the SUNY Canton Sledding Hill on sleds you create yourself from cardboard. Teams or individuals are invited to enter, and each sled must carry one team member. Registration and sled judging will run from 10:00 - 10:30, with the races beginning at 10:30. Sleds will be judged overall for special categories and by division for fastest time.
Approved materials: Cardboard, duct tape, recycled plastic bags, paint, and glue.
Hemlock Woolly Adelgid Walk & Talk
Join local conservationists for a guided walk and talk to learn how you can help protect hemlock trees from an invasive forest pest called hemlock woolly adelgid. We will meet at the Wachtmeister Field Station located on County Rt. 27 in Canton, NY and carpool to Pike Road to the Kip Trailhead.
Fox Den
SLU's Conservation Biology class visited a fox den and downloaded pictures from two trail cameras monitoring the some of the entrances. The den had been visited by fisher, possum, deer, squirrels, and the fox.
Oh, Deer.
There are deer around me on a daily basis when I'm home. This doe was just curious as I was out walking in the woods.
Waking Cerberus in Panther Gorge (WI5/M4)
...We walked to the base of the Den’s snowfield to have a quick glance at around small ice chips fell down. Helmets weren’t an option, but necessity even along the glade. We flaked the ropes and readied ourselves back at the “always wet corner.” A fat pillar formed the bottom 20’. This seemed straightforward. An offwidth crack, wider at the base, was partly occluded by the pillar, but could be seen immediately above. It appeared that a curtain may have covered most of it before the rain set it, but this was partially melted out leaving a few ice bridges and blobs on ledges.