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!
Big Pines nature trail -Pitcairn
A nice pre-snow hike through some large white pines & hemlocks. Great views of Cold Spring Brook and plenty of beaver activity too.The trail is only a little over a mile and well marked. This would be a nice snowshoe trek as well.
Run, Dorothy—Emerald City is Falling
Watertown is poised to become an Emerald City, but that’s not good news. Jefferson and Lewis will soon be Emerald Counties, and St. Lawrence County began the process of change two years ago. Unfortunately, this kind of transformation does not involve happy endings.
Loon Lake Mountain Fire tower
Finally got a chance to hike up to the long abandoned fire tower on Loon Lake Mt. The upper reaches had 2 or 3 inches of fresh snow, and there was ice as well. The last mile is pretty brutal. Around 1700' of ascent, and 6.2 miles round trip. The views were incredible- and we lucked out weather wise, chilly but clear. This is in Franklin county near Vermontville. It's an awesome trek, but not for everyone. The last mile is pretty difficult, and at nearly 3300' in altitude it has much different conditions than lower peaks.
Naturalist Walk: Nocturnal Animals
Join us this week on a walk of the Kip Trail in Canton to learn about the secret lives of the many nocturnal animals here in the North Country. We'll talk flying squirrels, skunks, bats, owls and many more of our common, but rarely seen nocturnal neighbors. Plus, we'll discuss some of the fascinating adaptations these critters have that allow them to navigate the world at night. This walk will be led by Nature Up North Project Manager Emlyn Crocker.
Naturalist Walk: tree identification with Emlyn Crocker
The rain didn't hold us back from having a great time identifying trees with Emlyn Crocker this weekend! We identified trees based on bark, leaf scars, and branch patterning patterns at Indian Creek Nature Center.
Ask A Fairy: Fall 2018 Answers
Thanks for visiting the fairies this fall and leaving your notes inside! You had some really great questions, and Thimble and Blossom had so much fun answering them. They are already down in the tropics where they'll be spending the winter, but are excited to come back next spring!
Keep reading below to find your question among the others, and let us know if you have any questions. Thanks!
Fall Orienteering Course Open House
Do you love trail running, hiking, and exploring new places? Come by this Sunday during our Fall Orienteering Open House to check out the Orienteering Course on the SLU campus.
Not familiar with orienteering? Head over to our Orienteering page to learn about the sport and the permanent course at St. Lawrence University.
Red Maple Leaves
As the temperature dropped last Friday this red maple coincidingly dropped all its leaves creating this beautiful display!
Evening Grosbeaks
We had 300+ evening grosbeaks visit in Upper Jay back in 2008. Now we're blessed to see a half dozen per year. They flew through on Oct. 20th this year...a beautiful sight.
Santanoni camp
This is a very neat trek.Usually we hike or paddle to our destination- but this time we changed things up. We rode on a horse drawn wagon that runs the 5 miles (each way) to the great camp. It costs $25 each and was well worth it. The trip in is typical Adirondack mixed hardwoods.after about a mile you stop at the farm site to look around the remaining building there. The camp and outbuildings are open for exploring and there are canoes and a kayak in the boathouse free to use. The fellow driving the team(Larry) did a nice informative tour of the grounds.