Type: Landscape

Habitat description: The Adirondack Mountains are an unusual geological formation located in the northeastern lobe of Upstate New York in the United States. The mountains rise in Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Herkimer, Lewis, St. Lawrence, Saratoga, Warren, and Washington counties. They are the only mountains in Eastern U.S that aren’t geographically Appalachian.

Icicles in Sunlight
taken March 26th on the way up Azure Mountain in Waverly, NY

View from Azure Mountain; Waverly, NY
taken on the top of Azure mountain on March 26th at approximately 2:30pm

Landscape: This photo was taken on January 29th, 2014 at Paul Smiths VIC Program. This was one of my favorite field trips because we spent the entire day cross country skiing. There are over 25 miles of trails for cross country skiing and skate skiing at Paul Smiths VIC. The VIC contains 3,000's acres in the Adirondack park and is a great place to experience nature at its finest. This photo shows a great open landscape picture on one of the trails at the VIC. I really enjoy this picture because while we were on the trail we were in the forest.

Landscape Photo: This photo was taken on top of Azure Mt. on March 26th, 2014. As a class we hiked up Azure Mt. in order to see the magnificent view from above. Azure Mt. is located in Franklin County, New York and has a 35 foot fire tower on top of the Mountain. The fire tower was my favorite part because you could climb so high and look down upon everything. The fire tower has been standing on top of Azure since 1918. Azure Mountain is a 2,518-foot mountain and I would really enjoy coming back here.

The day after a March blizzard, a friend and I set off from the ADK Loj for an attempt on Mt. Marshall. Avalanche Lake was frozen solid, enabling us to avoid the chutes and ladders of the established trail and hike directly across the lake ice. The steep walls of the gorge were spectacular, but also funneled the bitter wind directly into our faces. We reached the base of Mt. Marshall later than expected, and discovered that the trail had not been broken recently.

(landscape) Top of Azure Mountain, Waverly, NY. - This Sunrise picture at the top of Azure in the fall is a nice capture of the surrounding landscape. While Most of this photo is dark, the sunrise does a nice job of capturing the mountain ridges. Azure is about 2,500 ft in elevation and is in the Adirondack park. On top there is a fire observation tower, which was fixed up in 2001 and is now climbable for those who reach the top.

We were mostly out of breath when we reached the top of Azure, but the view of the landscape stole whatever breath we had left. It was one of the most beautiful experiences I've had in 2014, and that's why I took this particular photo. It felt like a fantasy.

This is a close-up of a knobby tree on the hike up to Azure Mountain. All the knobs are where the tree has continued to grow over an area where a branch has fallen off. Considering the often harsh North Country winters this tree would have had to go through, especially on the side of Azure Mountain, it makes sense that this tree would have had so many branches fall off - and therefore be so knobby!