Despite more than two centuries of forest harvest and the
combined and increasingly brutal onslaughts of floods, wind
storms, wildfires, invasive species, climate change and ice
storms, the Adirondack forests of 2012 remain "the most
continuous they have been in over 150 years," according to the
Adirondack Atlas published by the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Although stressed by disease, damaged soils and airborne
pollutants, the state's forested lands have proven surprisingly
resilient. Young trees are doing well, while the Adirondack Park
also contains a collection of the largest stands of old growth
forest east of the Mississippi. Since the early 1870s, the state
has acquired more than 2,000 parcels with a combined total of
nearly 1.3 million acres that held either virgin forest or lands
that were once lightly cut for spruce, according to research by
the late Barbara McMartin. Does the evidence of an crumbling
foundation or an old gristmill stone diminish the quality of
wilderness lands? (Photo — Joe Hack