My partner and I currently live in Seattle, but I'm from north Jersey and he's from Denver. We're both backcountry skiers and mountain bikers, and he's also an alpine climber. As great as the outdoor access is here, I'm getting pretty frustrated by the traffic, long drives to ski and bike, and the insane cost of housing. I'd also love to be closer to my east coast friends and family. I grew up spending a lot of time in the Adirondacks, and even after living in places with bigger mountains, it's still my favorite place. I also like the idea of moving back to a place where snow in the winter is normal. Seattle got 6 inches of snow the day after Christmas, and the whole city had to shut down for a week.
My partner has agreed to spend a month or two out in Saranac at some point to try it out, but I know his bias will always be that everything out west is more exciting activity-wise. Does anyone have suggestions for how to make the most of a 2 month trial period? Is it better to come out during ski or bike season? Would that be enough time to get a feel for the community?
I am not telling you I saw or was visited by aliens, you will have to draw your own conclusions, but this will always stick with me.
For background, I own a Skywatcher Esprit telescope (very high end for the average person, but astronomy holds a special place in my heart) and about 6 years ago in the fall I brought it on an extended stay in the Adirondacks.
One night I had it hooked up to a monitor as I like making long exposure time lapses of constellations. While I was setting it up I noticed on my monitor what I thought was a satellite (light fluttering, moving fast as hell, too high to be a plane). I then was manually tracking it on the telescope, trying to get a better look at it and more in focus; until I noticed the light on it shut off, and it stopped moving entirely.
With the light now off, it looked like a piece of glistening metal rice, simply hovering in the same position in the night sky. It then dropped like it was falling out of the sky until it was out of focus/view.
I was absolutely enamored and kept looking for it the next hour or so before packing it in.
At a loss, I left my telescope and monitor on the covered porch (it's more like a sunroom, I can close the shudders on it to protect my equipment).
That night though I could not shake the feeling of being watched in my cabin, I even closed the curtains from paranoia.
Around midnight, I awoke to what seemed like an absolutely torrential wind lasting about 5-6 seconds. I panicked thinking about my equipment and ran outside, only to see it exactly where it was, intact and all.
I soon noticed after my panic something was very off though, all of the dried leaves and brush around the dirt driveway and near the porch was entirely cleared out, as if someone took a leaf blower to the dirt driveway and front yard area, even dirt from my driveway wound up in the yard.
All of the other brush and dead leaves surrounding my cabin were untouched and undisturbed.
The practical side of me thinks it could've been a weird random gust, but that still leaves so many unanswered questions.
Based off some recommendations from kind users on this sub, I placed a giant order on Black Friday. I've only tried Placid so far, but I've run 15ml through one pod and the juice isn't even starting to brown yet -- incredible! Not only that, but it's goddamn delicious. Definitely my new ADV, and lucky for me I've got about 16 bottles of that, on top of some other flavors to try throughout the new year. This is A++ top quality juice; I am just blown away.
It's really sad to me that companies like this are likely to go under due to the nonsense regulations. All of the big players seem to be liquidating and on the way out. If you haven't tried Adirondack Vapor, I implore you to place an order and check it out. You won't be disappointed. Placid is their most popular juice for a reason!
Any other Placid vapers out there? Drop a line. Happy Holidays to all!
DC resident here, got some yaktrax for work since we got a ton of snow and sidewalks are very icy. I loved them, super helpful
When I searched the name on Reddit to see what people were talking about the vast majority of posts are from this sub
I’m an avid hiker and camper, mostly in Shenandoah and Texas/New Mexico
So what’s the deal with everyone here making fun of yaktrax? It sounds like it’s given as advice for inexperienced hikers? But I am sure there’s more to it than that, and at this point I’m just plain curious
So what’s up?
Does anybody have a resource for customizable Adirondack maps? I have several of the Adirondack Mountain Club "Guide To Adirondack Trails" books and the maps that come with them. This is the type of map that I'm looking for because I like the detail and topography they show. However, I have a camp in the southern Adirondacks that is just about EXACTLY where 3 of the books converge. And a 4th book contains an area near my camp as well.
So it really takes the corners and edges of 4 different maps to get a view of the area surrounding my camp. And I literally mean the corners; probably 15% or less of each map is useful to me for my purposes. To make it worse, Not a single one of these maps shows my exact location because it's blocked out by the maps insets.
It's really quite frustrating having to break out all of these maps, which are fairly difficult and unwieldy to begin with. Add to that the curious 4 year old with extremely tactile tendencies, that I've always got wandering around camp... On the plus side, I've found some extra "artwork" on a few maps.
Any ideas or suggestions?
