 You didn’t have to go outside yesterday morning to know it was cold. The telltale mist created in the fracas of cold air versus the warmth of the lake was easy to see.
Photo credit Edward “Wallenda” Reed.
 Today’s Adirondack Lifestyle HQ foliage cam shows ~18% change in leaves at 2,100 elevation in the Adirondacks. You can thank my mother-in-law, who lives in Arizona but hails from Pennsylvania, for this new seasonal Adirondack Lifestyle feature: the Fall Foliage Cam. Anne usually visits us in the Adirondacks this time of year so she can enjoy the changing leaves she so misses. She’s taking a break from the trip east this year and today remarked she appreciated the view from home photo I had just emailed. She said she could experience the leaves changing from my photos.
So, I’m doing this for Anne who is a fellow admirer of all things natural and beautiful, but fans of the Adirondack Lifestyle will also get to watch the transformation of summer to fall to winter in the Adirondacks this year. Most of the changes will be seen from the Adk Lifestyle HQ perspective featuring Mount Marcy and Big Slide.
My tripod is in place and I promise to do my best to keep Anne and other fans of Mother Nature apprised of her latest artwork.
Oh yes, I’m calling the change 18% here at Adk Lifestyle HQ.
 On one hand, I believe one can always find a piece of nature to enjoy, even in a large metropolitan area such as New York City. I’ve traveled enough for business to places I’d otherwise never visit and always manage to sniff out decent options for trail runs, bike rides, paddles, swimming, etc., based on the local geography. Those green breaks are a welcome respite from too many meetings and too many people. It is a pleasant surprise to discover outdoor space in densely populated areas.
On the other hand however, there are clearly places in the world that feel better than other places. I am fortunate to live in one such space: Lake Placid, in the heart of the Adirondacks of upstate New York. I just returned home from a delightful but brief visit to family and friends who live in another ‘feel good’ part of the world, down the shore. Sea air, sunshine, and playing in the ocean are as good a medicine as powder skiing, each in its own time.
Regular readers of Adirondack Lifestyle will recognize this lead to my Adirondack Lifestyle Wellness Theory (ALWT) which holds spending time outdoors is good for people. You can take my word for it; I didn’t get to be an outdoor recreation expert by not paying attention. It is fun to do things outdoors. Or, lacking blind faith in a total stranger, you can follow the links in my blog posts to the multitude of scientific reports that support the idea it is good to spend time outside!
As you can see in today’s featured photos, the Adirondacks are a great place to do just that. The Lake Placid Summit Lacrosse Tournament is in town for the weekend and the athletes seem to be enjoying playing outdoors in the shadow of Whiteface Mountain and the Sentinel Range.
 Photographs courtesy of Joann Sandone Reed
One obvious allure of this Adirondack lifestyle is the natural visual beauty of the outdoors. That is, it is easier to look on the bright side of life when it surrounds you. The natural beauty of the Adirondacks has brightened many otherwise gray moments, and studies have shown the important therapeutic and healing effect of spending time in nature. I think that healing power is addictive, and alluring. It explains why, even in the middle of very busy and hectic lives, many people who live in the Adirondacks stop and go for a ski, a run or a walk in the woods.
It is the reason I stopped all work on a very busy spring day last week and took a walk around the homestead property with my camera. The day started rainy and gray, which made working inside a tad more tolerable. But when a brisk breeze blew away the clouds to reveal a sparkling, Adirondack blue sky, it was over for the chores.
Fortunately, springtime in the Adirondacks is best experienced up close. Instead of winter’s impressive snow-capped mountain vistas, in the spring, one notices the smaller or more subtle things that make the Adirondacks so special. I say fortunately, because the lure of seeing something special and beautiful is another good reason (excuse?) to take the daily dose of outdoor medicine, and go outside and play.
Today’s featured photo of Adirondack springtime moss courtesy of Joann Sandone Reed.
 It is a beauty day in the Adirondacks. Twenty-two degrees and the sky is a brightAdirondack blue. It is tough not to be exuberant. After a long, busy, and wonderful week, a weekend of extended Adirondack skiing awaits. Skiing of all kinds; groomed cross-country, alpine at Whiteface, backcountry trail and woods skiing, are all deeeeluxe in the Adirondacks right now and come highly recommended.
I know it might be tough for readers who don’t live in the Great White North to imagine the current refreshingly cold and crisp outdoor temperatures and the piles of beautiful snow on the ground here. Hopefully today’s morning commute photo will help give you an idea. It shows a Fritz-the-car, eye view of the bobrun that also serves as our driveway at the homestead.
Since pictures speak a thousand words, the photo below shows an Adirondack eye candy treat, courtesy of Mother Nature, who set the sky on fire last night after providing glistening, fast snow for a wonderful late day ski at Mount Van Hoevenberg.
This might be a good time to point out that time spent outdoors is medicine for breathing creatures. Here’s a link to my Adirondack Wellness Theory, in the event you haven’t yet been subjected to my pestering admonitions to “Get outside!”
Admittedly, I expend a large percentage of column inches reveling in my surroundings here on the Adirondack lifestyle blog. It happens for a couple of reasons: this medium lends itself to visual communication, people frequently don’t have time to read too many words, and the scenery actually is pretty darn nice here.
However, the reason I made the decision to relocate to the Adirondacks involves considerations much larger and more important than big mountains and breathtaking views. I believe living close to nature and natural cycles helps create a wholesome and healthy life. I find it easy to live close to nature in the Adirondacks, and thus I feel better.
Since my first sentient moment I have been drawn to the outdoors. It turns out I wasn’t so odd. There is the Adirondack Wellness Theory, based on scientific data that supports spending time outside in nature is good for humans. In a “forest kindergarten” class for example, in Saratoga Springs, New York, just south of the Adirondack Park, pupils spend three hours a day outside. The children ages, 3 ½ to 6, are outside, rain or shine, every day! That sounds reasonable to me. My son spent at least three hours a day outside growing up in the Adirondacks. He was a happy kid and he slept well. Oh yes, here is another new study that provides the obvious answer to the question, “Does Exercise Help You Sleep?”
I wish they had talked to me before they spent all that money on the study.
 This morning’s 14 degree weather reminded me that Adirondack Spring includes the whole maple syrup thing: cold nights and warm, sunny days. Many people do not realize the Adirondacks of upstate New York are a big source of maple syrup. Vermont’s marketing tries to make maple syrup from there sound like a superior product, but take it from an expert, ours is better. I buy my syrup from local producers, very local. These days, I am a customer of my neighbors and friends at South Meadow Farm. We also sometimes get our syrup from friends who are struck by the bug to make their own syrup. Maple syrup is a good habit to have since it is pretty ubiquitous here; it is not hard to find. You can even buy it at the mid-station chair lift at Whiteface Mountain. Making maple syrup is not a difficult process, it just takes time and patience. My family even did it one year. It was a long time ago, in a county far away, when a lack of patience with the simmering process gave us the idea to finish it off inside, on the gas stove. The entire kitchen was covered in sticky. The wallpaper peeled off the walls from the sticky steam. That was the best tasting maple syrup ever, but I wouldn’t recommend the process. It is easier to buy it from Tony, next door. Today’s photo is in memoriam, and shows the remains of my x-c ski trail to the Jack Rabbit Trail.
 As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, there is a long history of healing in the Adirondacks. From the current research underway at our hidden jewel, the Trudeau Institute in Saranac Lake, to the tuberculous work of Dr. Livingston Trudeau way back in 1884, to the very real, but abstract, wellness-inducing effect of living in a natural environment. This is a huge element of the Adirondack Lifestyle. Today’s photo is a shot of one of the early ‘cure cottages’ in Saranac Lake from the days when folks with TB came to the Adirondacks to ‘take the cure.’ An important, no essential, element of the cure was to breath the fresh, unpolluted Adirondack mountain air. The porches were completed unheated and open, even through the bitterly cold Adirondack winters. The very ill who were unable to walk were brought out to the porches on the ‘cure beds,’ where they were bundled up in blankets, but still able to breathe the fresh and healing Adirondack air. It all sounds hokey except for the fact that it worked. And still does to this day. I take the cure every day, and am, no doubt, healthier for it. Today’s cure, by the way, involves skiing fresh backcountry powder and Mt. Marcy. The Adirondack Lifestyle is all about quality of life! Yes, I promise to post pics of today’s ski, especially for the special request!!
 It was a lovely late afternoon and evening here in the Adirondacks. The Olympic cross-country ski trails at Mount Van Hoevenberg (MVH) are worth mentioning today because the staff has done such a superb job. After the rain and subsequent cold, conditions are challenging, to say the least. Not to worry though, the trails have been tilled and groomed to perfection. The ski-skating is outstanding, with great conditions for interval training, or specific technique or speed workouts. It was great fun! And the sunset was glorious this evening as well. Adirondack sunset are very special; their peach, lavender and gray stripes contrasted against the mountains and balsams are truly spectacular. Here are a few shots of today’s views.
 Since this is a blog about the Adirondacks and Adirondack Real Estate, it is essential to address how property here in the Adirondack region of upstate New York is valued. Pretty simply, just like property elsewhere; value is based on the law of supply and demand. From there it gets slightly more complicated since most of the property I work with is located within the six-million acre Adirondack Park.
“The Adirondack Park was created in 1882 by the New York State Legislature, which enacted measures that guarantee public lands will remain forever wild. The Park itself is the size of the state of Vermont, with a structure unlike any other state or national park in the nation: it is a patchwork of public and private lands. There are expansive blocks of undeveloped backcountry interspersed with private homes, villages and tracts of corporate forest lands under active management. In the Adirondacks, it is possible to hike to an isolated waterfall in the afternoon, then spend the evening strolling Main Street.” Adirondack Regional Tourism Council
It is like living in a National Park, but owning your land and conducting private industry. And that is exactly what it is; private land surrounded by government-owned land that will never be developed. Therefore, there is limited developable, private land available. This, of course, makes it dear, or valuable.
There are many, many miles/kilometers of publicly accessible trails for hiking, biking, skiing, hunting and general enjoying. That is one reason why Lake Placid was recently chosen America’s Best Outdoor Town. For my international readers, this means you can actually go for a hike on such great expanses of land that you might never see a sign of civilization, for free. You can hunt on public lands with no cost other than your hunting license. Here is a link for a great overview of life in the Adirondack Park, or “within the blue line.”
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