About The Adirondacks (courtesy of Wikipedia)

The Adirondack mountain range is a group of mountains in the northeastern part of New York that runs through Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Herkimer, Lewis, Warren, and Washington counties.

The mountains are often included by geographers in the Appalachian Mountains, but they are geologically more similar to the Laurentian Mountains of Canada. [citation needed] They are bordered on the east by Lake Champlain and Lake George, which separate them from the Green Mountains in Vermont. They are bordered to the south by the Mohawk Valley and to the west by the Tug Hill Plateau, separated by the Black River. This region is south of the St. Lawrence River.

A large portion of the Adirondack range is encompassed within the six million acres (24,000 km²) of Adirondack State Park, which includes a constitutionally-protected Forest Preserve of approximately 2.3 million acres (9,300 km²). About 40% of the land is owned by the state, with 60% private inholdings, heavily regulated by the Adirondack Park Agency. http://www.apa.state.ny.us/ The Adirondack Park contains thousands of streams, brooks and lakes, most famously Lake Placid, adjacent to the village of Lake Placid, two-time site of the Olympic Winter Games.

Unlike the Appalachians, the Adirondacks do not form a connected range, but consist of many summits, isolated or in groups, arranged with little apparent order. There are about one hundred peaks, ranging from 1200 to 5000 feet (370 m to 1500 m) in height; the highest peak, Mount Marcy (sometimes also called Tahawus), at 5344 ft (1629 m), is near the eastern part of the group. Other noted High Peaks include Algonquin Peak (formerly Mt. McIntyre), 5114 ft (1559 m), Haystack 4960 ft (1512 m), Skylight 4926 ft (1501 m), Whiteface 4871 ft (1485 m), Dix 4857 ft (1480 m), and Giant 4627 ft (1410 m).

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