Adirondack Mountains

The Adirondack Mountains /ædᵻˈrɒndæk/ form a massif in the northeast of Upstate New York in the United States. Its boundaries correspond to the boundaries of Adirondack Park. The mountains form a roughly circular dome, about 160 miles (260 km) in diameter and about 1 mile (1,600 m) high. The current relief owes much to glaciation.

History

The earliest written use of the name, spelt Rontaks, was in 1724 by the French missionary Joseph-François Lafitau. He defined it as tree eaters. In the Mohawk language Adirondack means porcupine, an animal which may eat bark. The Mohawks had no written language at the time so Europeans have used various phonetic spellings. An English map from 1761 labels it simply Deer Hunting Country and the mountains were named Adirondacks in 1837 by Ebenezer Emmons.

People first arrived in the area following the Settlement of the Americas around 10,000 BC. The Algonquian peoples and the Mohawk nation used the Adirondacks for hunting and travel but did not settle. European colonisation of the area began with Samuel de Champlain visiting what is now Ticonderoga in 1609, and Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues visited the region in 1642.

High Peak

High Peak or High Peaks may refer to:

Places

Mountains and hills

Other

See also

Adirondack Park

The Adirondack Park includes New York's Forest Preserve in Upstate New York, United States. The park's boundary corresponds to the Adirondack Mountains. Unlike most preserves, about 52 per cent of the land is privately owned. This area contains 102 towns and villages. The year-round population is 132,000, with 200,000 seasonal residents. The inclusion of human communities makes the park one of the great experiments in conservation in the industrialized world.

The park's 6.1 million acres (2.5×10^⁶ ha) include more than 10,000 lakes, 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, and a wide variety of habitats including wetlands and old-growth forests.

History

For the history of the area before the formation of the park, see The History of the Adirondack Mountains.

Early tourism

Before the 19th century the wilderness was viewed as desolate and forbidding. As Romanticism developed in the United States, the view of wilderness became more positive, as seen in the writings of James Fenimore Cooper, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern United States and is the United States' 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. The state has a maritime border in the Atlantic Ocean with Rhode Island, east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the north and Ontario to the west and north. The state of New York, with an estimated 19.8 million residents in 2015, is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City, the state's most populous city and its economic hub.

With an estimated population of nearly 8.5 million in 2014, New York City is the most populous city in the United States and the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. The New York City Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City is a global city, exerting a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment, its fast pace defining the term New York minute. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York City is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural and financial capital of the world, as well as the world's most economically powerful city. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State. Two-thirds of the state's population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% live on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th century Duke of York, future King James II of England. The next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany.

Adirondack High Peaks

The Adirondack High Peaks is the name given to 46 mountain peaks in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, USA that were originally believed to comprise all of the Adirondack peaks higher than 4,000 feet (1,219 m). However, later surveying showed that four of the peaks in the group are actually under this elevation, and one peak that should have been included was overlooked. Due to tradition, no mountains were removed from or added to the group as a result of the revised elevation estimates.

All except four are located in central and northern Essex County, primarily south of Lake Placid and Keene Valley. The others are just to the west in Franklin County. All the summits are on land owned by New York State as part of its Forest Preserve. Thirty-three are in a vast tract of nearly 300,000 acres (1,200 km²) known as the High Peaks Wilderness Area, subdivided into eastern (26 peaks) and western (seven peaks) zones. Others are in the adjacent Giant and Dix wilderness areas. Whiteface Mountain, which has a downhill ski area and a toll road to its summit, and Esther Mountain are set slightly to the north, in Wilmington.