The sun., 1903-06-14
GETTING READYFOR THE WOODS
MORE PEOPLE THAN EVER WILL
GO THERE THIS YEAR.
Fire Hasn't Hurt the AdirOndacks Resorts
The Rain Came I'm Time 10 Save the
Beauty Spots--Cha mplain's and Lake
Georges Historic Battle Grounds.

camping outfits for the Adirondacks. ~!
ready the hotels are open and some arGei'
lovers Of the most beautiful mountain
region In America have left the city behint
for the summer.
Your true lover OF the woods cannot
Get there too early, and though 1t IL COO
vet for the life in tents and log cabins, NC
delightful in July and August to nature
lovers, the hotels seem to be at their oes'
before the crowd comes.
No other nation has pleasure ground
and health country like this Ave thousand
square miles Of it and more. mountains
5000 feet high. lakes in many hundreds
dotted with many islands and with the virgin
forest fringing their shores. And through
this wild country, especially designed by
nature for the hunter and the fisherman,
are hotels which are homes for such men
und women as prefer luxury to roughing
II In log cabins and under canvas.
1t is all SO vast and so varied that its
beauty is never exhausted to the visitors
who go there year after year. To go into
the mountains to-day at one resort and
to return the same way is to read only one
page in this nature book of many pages.
To get anything like a comprehensive idea
of the region you must go again and again.
The western side, with its lovely Fulton
chain Of lakes, the Upper St Regis and
Saranao lakes. the Tupper lakes, Blue
Mountain, the Horseshoe ponds and the
Raauette lakes and river running up to the
st. Lawrence, is different entirely from the
eastern slope, which includes Lake Placid.
Loon Lake, the beautiful Chateaugay chains
and Lake Champlain, the magnificent. with
it's hundred -mile-ong panorama of noun
tains on either shore Au Sable Chasm and
Keene Valley.
And each of these has an individual charm
of it's own, so that every one unvisited is
something lost in the general impression
of the whole Ten seasons was the time
set by one ardent lover of the Adirondacks
as the shortest limit in which q stranger
might hope to gain fair idea of the lowell
hess of the whole region.
IL have spent nearly twenty in the woods, y
said he. sand every year ] find some spot
wholly new to me which | wouldn't have
missed for worlds
News came down from the Adirondacks
a month or so ago that the trout were TAX
ing the fly after fattening on more substan-
tial fare all through the springtime. That
set scores OF ardent anglers replenishing
fly books and looking over last seasons
tackle. The thought of the days along
the stream sides and on the lakes where
the big specked fellows are greedy for
toothsome morsels tempts the most con-
scientious worker to long for holidays
which seem only too long in coming.
The North Woods are the ideal fisher
mans land. Not to speak of the giants
OF the lakes, the fighting muskallonge and
pike of Lake Champlain and the salmon
OF the deeper lakes. every stream where
trout could by any possibility find home
ard a living will reward the angler who
can cast flies And every lake has a full
complement of bass, ,pckerel and lusty
lake trout.
Lovers of Adirondncks sport will tell
you that no trout in the world have the
favor of these same trout when he who
Is to eat them has had the joy of catching
them also and the crisp pine-ladcn air
has set his appetite on edge. There are
men to whom the thought Of a meal like
that leaves pelrnonicu dinner vain and
tasteless.
II the rain had not como down, provi-
dentially as it seemed, when it did, there
grieved people in this city now facing the
prospect of choosing another holiday place
Tor the summer and for many summers
to como until fire-blackened waste should
build itself up into forest paradise again.
But as 1t has turned out not one of the
famous spots in the AdiIondacks is the
worse for the forest fires which a week or
two ago threatened TO sweep over them.
Had the fires continued they would have
wiped out millions Of dollars worth of
improvements made IN the woods IN the
last five years. But the hard fight made
by the rangers up there confined the flames
10 comparatively restricted area, and
then the rain fell and did the rest. There
will be no more danger Of a fire-swept
forest, for this season at any rate.
The people who go up to the woods this
year will have to search to find the fire
area, for it is beyond the usual trails. The
fishing isn't hurt and the hunting will be
just AZ good as ever in the fall. In fact.
the deer already have recovered from
their alarm, and visitors. IL they are lucky.
clearings cropping the young shoots or
nibbling among the lily pads by the lake
borders.
This generation sees the Adirondacks
probably to better advantage than its
fathers did or than its children will after
it. The improvements which have been
made there have laid the whole country
open and have given lust enough Of civil
ization to it to supply all the comforts while
leaving 1t unspoiled In another twenty
or thirty years. perhaps, some Of its present
wild beauty may be lost with the increase
Of the number of hotels summer camps
and cottages which seems inevitable.
But now the woods are at their best
There are excellent railroad facilities, yet
1t Is easy to get away from the railroads
entirely TO spots where you fail to realize
that there are such things as steel rails
or anything more modern than a stage
within q thousand miles of the woods.
There are several gateways to the Adiron-
dack region. You may enter by Piatts-
burg on Lake Champlain, taking the Cha
tealiRay Railroad as far as Saranac. or by
Au Sable Forks, Westport, Port Henry or
Fonda.
In a group in the heart Of the region are
the Saranac lakes and Upper st. Regis,
with their fine hotels and picturesque sur
rounding camps, owned by some OF the
best known men in public life, Southwest
OF these lies Raquette Lake and still further
away the Fulton chain Of seven beautiful
ways. Nearby is Old Forge, the late Presi-
lakes and Saranac again are the famous
preserve Of DR.. Seward Webb and the
Whitney and Rockefeller preser yes.
East OF Raquette Lake is Blue Mountain
and It's lake, one OF the most beautiful OF
Adirondack waters and one of the highest
In the woods. The mountain though not
the highest peak. guides the hunters travels
through all the western half OF the Adiron-
dack region and its lower slopes come down
clear to the lakes edge.
1t Ia q hard matter to compare Adiron-