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1st Quarter 2020 NORTH WOODS NEWS THE QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER OF THE NORTH WOODS CHAPTER OF THE ADIRONDACK MOUNTAIN CLUB From our Chapter Chairperson Director’s Report The Executive Committee met prior to the by Kathy O’Kane, November 2019 Annual Meeting to discuss the North Woods Chapter Representative on the budget, the 2019 donations, and all four vacant Adirondack Mountain Club Board of Directors officer positions. It was recommended that the 2020 budget remain the same as the current year. Highlights of the Board of Directors Meeting on Our thoughts on the donations were to give to December 9th include: organizations that help expose youth to the • Strategic Plan - This was approved at the June outdoors and those who work on trail maintenance Board of Directors Meeting to be reported on in in all our catchment area; Tupper Lake, Saranac early 2020. My interview with the consultant is Lake and Lake Placid. With this in mind, a few scheduled for early January. If you have any organizations we donated to last year were thoughts about the Adirondack Mountain Club that removed from the list and then the other amounts you would like me to pass along please contact me could be increased a bit. When presented to the at [email protected]. membership at the Annual Meeting, both the 2020 budget and the donation recommendations were • High Peaks Strategic Planning Advisory Group - voted on and passed with little discussion. The Adirondack Mountain Club is represented on DEC’s new group to provide advice on sustainably The Executive Committee acted as the managing public use in the Adirondack High Peaks. Nominating Committee and was faced with all They will be meeting twice a month through June to four officer positions being vacant. People were complete a strategic plan for the high peaks approached about accepting the positions with no wilderness area. Summaries of meetings will be volunteers surfacing. I proposed that I would published on the DEC website. continue as Chairperson and Kathy O’Kane as Co- • 2019 Budget - While efforts have been made to Chairperson if I did not have the responsibility of generate additional revenue and closely monitor the monthly meetings and recruiting a program operating expenses in the 2019 fiscal year, the speaker. We will have one Annual Meeting in the budget will be out of balance at the end of 2019. To Fall. Under these conditions, Susan Omohundro resolve the imbalance the Board voted to approve a agreed to be Secretary and Elisabeth Craven will transfer of $185,000 of uncommitted funds from fill the Treasurer spot. please continue on page 2 please continue on page 2 CHAPTER OFFICERS and Secretary: Susan Omohundro Conservation: John Omohundro COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSONS Treasurer: Elisabeth Craven Membership: Elisabeth Craven Chairman: Gretchen Gedroiz Director - Kathy O’Kane Newsletter: Jim Edmonds Vice Chair: Kathy O’Kane Outings: Carol Edmonds Programs: Marilyn Gillespie 1st Quarter 2020 From our Chapter Chairperson -continued After much discussion at the Annual Meeting, Marilyn Gillespie volunteered to continue the pot luck dinners with a speaker program as an Outing. These will not be monthly meetings with committee reports, etc. but will be a gathering of interested folks similar to any other Outing. Committee Reports will be in our quarterly newsletters for all to read. A special thank you to the Edmonds as the Outings Schedule and Newsletter become more important in keeping our Chapter viable. They spend many hours producing these documents that keep us all active and informed! I’d also like to thank Lethe Lescinsky for her years of service as our Secretary and Peter Gillespie for his many many years as Treasurer. It can’t be done without people who volunteer. I know change isn’t easy but this new approach seems to be a good alternative for everyone involved. Thank you to all who continue to volunteer in many other ways. This will be important to the North Woods Chapter as we head into a new decade. Happy Holidays to all! Gretchen Director’s Report - continued • investments to fund operations through the remainder of the 2019 fiscal year • 2020 Budget - The Board passed the following 2020 budget: Outings Schedule Corrections $4,583,805 Operating Revenues * The 1st Quarter Outings Schedule, which North $4,568,481 Operating Expenses Woods members received on December 17th, contained two errors. * This includes in excess of $200,000 from undirected funds to offset proposed The January 27th, Wednesday, Cross Country expenses. Ski to Pine Pond is actually planned for January 27, Monday … since this year January 27th is, • Michael Barrett, the new ADK Executive in fact, a Monday. Director, spoke to implementing tighter internal controls to prevent over-spending while Similarly, the March 30, Friday, Snowshoe/Ski acknowledging the challenges of the 2020 - Bartlett Pond - McConley Rd Trail outing is budget. actually planned for March 27, Friday. • Membership report for December continues to These, and any other corrections, changes or hold steady at 17,200 member households. additions to the Schedule, can be found on the North Woods Online Calendar which is The next Board meeting is on March 28, 2020. available to North Woods Members. Page 2 1st Quarter 2020 Conservation Report Senator Betty Little and Assembly representative Doug Jones have co-authored a bill in Albany to declare the Adirondacks a low salt area. State highways inside the Blue Line would be obliged to cut back on salt. We can hope that there will be movement on this bill before Senator Little leaves office in December next year. ADKAction, a regional advocacy group based in Saranac Lake with whom our chapter has been cooperating, deserves some credit for the Little-Jones bill. I asked its acting director, Hannah Grail, how we could help. She urged us to request that town and village governments sign the “hold-the-salt pledge.” Except for the tri-towns, where we’re based, I’m not sure that’s the best role for us. I’ll find out which of the tri-town governments is still not on the pledge, and your conservation committee will discuss how to approach them. Another useful role the chapter can play is convincing our neighbors (and chapter members?) to accept a low- salt policy. People have become used to driving fast in the winter. They’re going to have to adjust their habits. There probably will be more accidents because people will resist change. This is going to be a hard sell. “What do I get out of this except knowing that some homeowner in Gabriels gets less salt in his wells? Who cares about aquifers I can’t even see?” (Doesn’t this sound also like our global climate change problem?) The chapter could help in a public education campaign. We need to say: Low salt means smart salt, not no salt. Roads will still be treated, but the timing, techniques, and machinery will all change. Driving for a half hour at 40 or 45 instead of 55 is only going to set one back about 7 to 11 minutes. I’m willing to write a commentary for the local papers on behalf of the chapter. The conservation committee will meet to work on this. Join us (send me your email address). - John Omohundro, Conservation Chairman [email protected] The Intergalactic Solution to the Global Problem There’s a comet, way too big to ignore, Comes out of nowhere, not heard of before, It’s aiming straight for the Sun. The Bard of Birch Street is an No point, you trying to run . ., Adirondack curmudgeon who rarely Climate change won’t be a problem no more. speaks, but when he does, his every - The Bard of Birch Street, ever on the alert utterance is in the form of a limerick. Page 3 1st Quarter 2020 The History Corner by the History Guy Plenty of Horses, A Dynamite Shack, and Two Outhouses This fall I spent some time hiking and bushwhacking in the Hays (or Hayes) Brook truck trail region, and fell down a rabbit hole. Figuratively speaking. I am often surprised by how much human history one can stumble over in “the wilds.” Here’s just one example. Map of Hays Brook/Sheep Meadow/Grassy Pond area showing features described in this article. Page 4 1st Quarter 2020 The History Corner - continued Ginny and Ken West recall that everyone at Paul Smiths College referred to this area as "Lot 15," probably referring to its position within Great Tract I, the Franklin County portion of Macomb's purchase, so-named at the end of the 18th century. Soon after passing the metal gate at the start of the truck trail, there's evidence of an old road off to the right. This provided access to a tent platform on the south shore of Osgood River. There's still sign of a shack on the south side of the road, known as the dynamite shack. If it really was for storing dynamite, were the charges used to break up log jams during river drives in the area? The walk to Grassy (or Grass) Pond has a long history as a logging road. It split at the south end of the pond. The left fork crossed the pond's outlet where the beaver have built a dam. The original logging roads were enhanced in the twentieth century, perhaps as late as the 1970s. Now four massive girders remain of the bridge over this outlet. The right fork continued along the east side of the pond to a private hunting camp at the north end of the pond. A trail had been illegally cut on state land to provide access from the east.