Saranac Lake native updates her Adirondack guidebook

Nov 24, 2023

Aug 30, 2023

Contrary to widespread rumor, I am not a 46er. I have been stuck at 37 High Peaks for years and now, in my eighth decade, am resigned to remaining at that rung. Why struggle up a mountain with no formal trail and no view, merely to check a box?

Meantime, I have come to appreciate the Low Peaks — Baker, Haystack (the Ray Brook one), Scarface, Mt. Jo, and what I call the “Straight A’s”: Adams, Ampersand, Arab, Azure.

All the more reason to welcome Lisa Feinberg Ballard’s latest, the third edition of her “Hiking the Adirondacks.” The volume is part of the Falcon Guides series, sponsored by the American Hiking Society and published (2023) by the Globe Pequot division of Rowman & Littlefield.

Ballard is a third-generation Saranac Laker (or fourth; we’ll untangle that in tomorrow’s Daily Enterprise). She dedicates this volume to her son Parker, her “favorite hiking buddy. Every mountain we climb together is my favorite,” she writes, heading off the inevitable question.

Another Adirondack guidebook? What sets Ballard’s apart from all the others — the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) series, Phil Brown’s compact Adirondack Explorer set and so on? Each has its strengths, and they work well in tandem.

Among Ballard’s plusses are its warmly conversational tone, like you’ve just asked her, “What’s the trail up Mt. Typical like?”; its distances given for round trips, not just one way, assuming that if you go up a peak you will probably come down; pet friendliness ratings; and easy-read maps of each hike, plus scads of excellent color photos, many the work of the author, who is one of those enviable people who excel at numerous skills. Some of their captions, though, in tiny reverse type (“reverse” being printer-talk for white lettering superimposed on a dark background) can be hard to decipher, and most would be more useful if they did more than simply repeat what’s obvious to the eye.

Ballard limits herself to 50 hikes (three more than in Edition Two), which is not easy to do in a park nearly the size of Vermont that offers hundreds of outings. All but a couple are mountain climbs, which raises the question, Is the title accurate, if only two chosen hikes in the entire park do not involve climbing? The book’s subtitle tips us off: “A Guide to the Area’s Greatest Hiking Adventures.” True, a slog on a flat, arrow-straight beaver-flooded former railroad bed is not exactly a great adventure. And to Ballard’s credit, the diversity she has achieved is commendable. From rugged Gothics to gentle Shelving Rock Falls and the Lake George shore, from Lyon Mt. in the north to Middle Settlement Lake (southwest), the book covers the vast region and its variety splendidly well.

One minor downside of all this wealth of information is that you will find the book a bit heavy in your knapsack. But for all it offers, it’s well worth its weight.

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