Essex Chain’s deteriorating logging roads: Missed recreational opportunity in an Adirondack landscape long shaped by human activity

Essex Chain road surface

I am a wilderness advocate and am not in favor of roads being built or maintained in wilderness areas. While I don't necessarily believe bicycles are anathema to the wilderness experience, I am ok with them not being allowed on hiking trails in wilderness areas. With over half the Adirondack Forest Preserve being open to bicycles, there is plenty of space for everyone to have a slice of the pie. From a personal perspective, I am never about denying other user groups access. I am more for everyone respecting the access rights of other user groups and doing their part to make it all work. 

However, you absolutely can, even in wilderness areas, allow bicycle travel via linear recreation corridors or bicycle corridors (as they are implemented within the Catskills Forest Preserve). These corridors wouldn't necessarily be on hiking trails (in the Catskills some are and some aren't but they also go over mountains in the Catskills whereas you could route them on logging roads in the Adirondacks) and wouldn't infringe on anyone's wilderness experience. In a lot of wilderness areas these corridors actually already existed as logging roads. Wilderness is more a state of mind then a reality. Virtually no area of the Adirondacks is untrammeled by man. And no matter how we try to cover it up, the signs of man will always be there by those with a keen eye. So spiting recreationalist and also dividing them into worthy and unworthy user groups with the concept that their 2-10ft wide sliver of infrastructure (trails and logging/woods roads) is going to ruin the environment and wilderness experience, is simply gaslighting. It just gives groups an excuse to be recreational bigots. Like anything, if you give someone the moral high ground to justify exclusion, they will likely fight to stay on top of that hill. 

In the case of the Essex Chain, it's a low use area with a massive logging road infrastructure that could have been phenomenal for family bikepacking, canoe camping, and backpacking. Being a relatively small unit, especially without the proposed bridge over the Cedar River, it's not a place the more hard core recreational users will ever flock to. It's also difficult to get to and then into (especially if paddling). The upside, it came pre-built with all the infrastructure necessary for ideal recreation for equestrian, XC skiers, and the disabled.  Instead, through a series of compromises they made Essex Chain as unfriendly as possible for everyone. As a result the roads weren't intentionally rewilded and bikes were allowed to access them, but they were not longer maintained at all beyond the MAPWD section (which is in phenomenal shape, despite and in part motor vehicle use beyond it's locked gates) to Fifth Lake. In many areas, especially closer to the Cedar River, these roads are no longer followable at all. This was a huge loss in a place (the Adirondacks) where even cutting a standard 2-foot wide hiking trail requires years of studies and then approvals, followed by the inevitable years of legal battles. Imagine having trails already cut and then deciding to abandon them simply to achieve a made up ideal in an area massively trammeled by man but even with (minimal) road maintenance would have still mostly reverted to nature within the unit boundaries, aside from the linear recreational corridors.  

I understand there is very small subsegment of folks that believes that our wild lands should be completely undeveloped. I respect that. For the folks that despise recreational infrastructure, they simply can choose to avoid it. In total, recreational infrastructure probably occupies less than 5% of total forest preserve and easement land area. That means that the small subsegment that eschews infrastructure has unfettered access to 95% of the forest preserve. Lands we all pay taxes to keep. Lands that are for all residents to use. 

This post isn't arguing we build more trails (at least not without any oversight) bur rather that we maintain and redesign existing trail beds. Even if every feasible snowmobile trail in the Forest Preserve was hardened (this merely means avoiding or bridging swampy sections that are frozen in winter) and maintained for 4 season use, likely no additional trees would need to be cut. And in essence no new infrastructure would actually be built on untrammeled lands.

Hiking trail as wide as a road (photo: Adirondack Council)

Pragmatically looking at it on a grand scale those roads are about as insignificant as anything that could be done to develop the Adirondacks, but would have made a huge difference in dispersing use and helping to protect other areas from looking like tanks rolled through. It also would have made more of an economic difference to local communities whom tourism is at least somewhat important. 

When you look at the trails in the High Peaks Wilderness, you realize bikes and logging roads aren't the bad guy. You realize that without properly designed trails, hikers are just as destructive and capable of creating, merely with the soles of their boots, a path as wide as those logging roads that were incongruent with nature. A trail or roadbed is merely a linear recreational corridor that concentrates use, preventing the rest of the forest from being impacted. It's a sacrificial sliver of our public recreational lands. It's not the end of wilderness or the death of our environment. 

This hiking trail, which likely never
saw a bike, has nearly 3ft of erosion
(photo: Adirondack Council)

Hardened trail being built in the largest wilderness area in NY
and the east coast. This is actually the approved surface by the
most restrictive protection group in the Adirondacks.
It doesn't look very wild to me.
(photo: Protect the Adirondacks)

From a Never Bike Tourer to Bikepacking in the Adirondacks: The Full Circle Journey of Exploration and Discovery

Adirondack bikepacking routes I created as of Dec 31, 2025

Back in 2020 during Covid I took my bikes to Arkansas to visit family. I hadn't ridden in Arkansas in 20 years and I was excited to ride there, even if it was a long way from my old stomping grounds. I got back from a ride and a family member asked me "with all the outdoors stuff you do, have you ever done any bike touring? Would you consider it?"

Without hesitation I said, "no, absolutely not." The reason I gave was I do a lot of slow deliberate wilderness type activities and to me, riding was about going fast. 50mph descents with my hair on fire. It was about cranking through turns and maintaining a high average speed and crushing sprints where I felt the need to. Every ride was an individual time trial. I was enjoying picking off Strava KOMs (I'm a good sprinter so those flat KOMs are actually achievable) and just having fun riding. No need to burden myself with a ton of gear and turn every ride into a multi-day planning and packing event. 

Not too long after that I got more into gravel riding. Despite what the bike industry tells us, gravel isn't a new thing, when I was a student at the University of Arkansas we often rode gravel on mountain bikes, usually to bridge single track sections, sometimes to get to trails in the Ozark NF or Arkansas State Parks from campus, and after college I rode a lot of gravel on my hard tail because my back just couldn't handle the multi-use (hiking trail) single track that was the norm in New York. Plus, gravel was that sweet spot between MTB and road. It was out in nature, quieter roads, sometimes it could be chunky or even mildly technical (Vermont Class 4 roads are a great example of this), but it was still spinning gears and riding fast. 

Ted King on a paved section of the 1000 mile Arkansas High Country Race in 2020 (credit bikepacking.com)

 

I'm not sure how or why (besides targeted Google advertising, of course) but I saw the Arkansas High Country Race and Vermonter Ted King had won it. I thought that looked cool. They rode fast (relatively speaking), they traveled fairly light, and they looked like they were still riding hard. It erased my pre-conceptions of a bike tourer having 100L of panniers filled with heavy cast iron. In my mind, bike touring was essentially backpacking in the 1970s. Except, like backpacking, bike touring has evolved and with it came the ultralight bikepacking. This isn't much different than the evolution of backpacking where people went from cast iron to JetBoils with titanium mugs, or 10lb canvas tents to 1lb frameless tarp tents, and external framed packs to carry that load to lighter, more compact and nimble internal frame packs. 

Bikepacking is a volatile term. Sometimes it's used to blanket describe riding a bike to multiple points over multiple days. To others its covering the same terrain in the same style you would backpack. Too me, bikepacking is anywhere you NEED to use a water filter. So gravel roads or even paved roads in the middle of nowhere can be bikepacking. Bike touring is anywhere you simply fill your water from a hose, fountain machine, or buy bottles. I realize people can and will endlessly debate what it means to them, and I'm not here to tell you what it is or it isn't. That's up to you. I once debated someone that said if you weren't literally pushing or even carrying your bike for most of the trip, it was bike touring. To me, if I'm carrying my bike half the trip, I'd rather leave it home and go backpacking. I didn't buy a bike, deal with all the mechanical nuance and cost, just to need a pair of hiking boots. I want to ride it!

(credit bikepacking.com and Restrap)

So how did I get from "hell no" to "maybe I'll try it" to "I'm all in" and now creating routes in the vast Adirondack Wilderness? Well, sadly my dog Colvin, died in 2023. In his early years we did some mountain biking, but by the time I got back into riding, even though he was still bagging difficult peaks for a 10yo dog in 2020, it was too much to ask of him to ride with me. His final years were spent hiking, sometimes very hard peaks or routes which he enjoyed, and that was best for him. I'd ride on rest days for him but we focused on getting him out into the mountains and local trails as much as possible. About 7 months later in the summer of 2023 I got my next gen trail dog, Marshall. By 2024 I realized this was the time to get back into mountain biking and off-road bikepacking and make use of Marshall's endless energy. He is my first truly high energy dog in the sense he doesn't have a chill switch. It's go, go, go. 

You have a small window (about 5 years, ages 2-7) to ride hard with your dog. Hard? This absolutely doesn't mean abuse them with overuse, it just means where they can ride* day to day and recover optimally. Where riding at 20mph for short stretches and 15-30mi days are not pushing them to the limit. After that window you need to start considering the dogs recovery much more, mayber sticking to more technical single track where you are riding much slower and even moving on to a cart and bike touring. I will say people tend to overthink how fast a MTBer is riding. Typically average speed is under 10mph for the day, usually between 6-10mph for single track trails. That is a 6-10min mile, and trust me, your dog isn't working that hard in proper temps running 10 min miles over a typical 10-20mi day if they are already properly conditioned.  A 10min mile is 250min or about 4 hours of activity over an 6-8 hour day of riding if you stop and smell the roses, filter water, go for a swim, and take some photos.  Again, not a serious strain on a properly conditioned dog in the optimal age range. Add in a backpack like the K9 Sportsack and you can ride probably around 40-45mi on the high end if you bag the dog for long gravel descents, pavement, and long flat stretches of gravel. 

*when I use the term ride, I'm riding and the dog is running or the dog may be in the Sportsack, but he's never at the wheel, my dog training skills only go so far and he loves to run as much as I love to bike

Well, that is the backstory on how I got into bikepacking and why I began developing routes in the Adirondack Forest Preserve. I'll be posting those routes here along with maps, route GPX, photos and trip reports. 

As a side note: I've gotten some mild natured hate from some gate keepers in the Adirondack cycling community. Don't ruin a good thing for us was the consensus. But I promise you this, in 3 years of Adirondacks bikepacking, mostly on weekends, I have NEVER seen another cyclist either day riding or bikepacking. NOT. ONE. What that tells me is not only are ADK backpackers a secretive bunch (afterall, to get mad means you do ride, but to see no evidence means you keep it quiet), but they may not even exist at all in numbers necessary to prove they do. I guess what I'm saying is I understand the sentiment but I don't believe sharing my routes is going to change bikepacking in the Adirondacks dramatically in the near future. And if it does long term, it will likely mean better infrastructure and more potential route terrain. I do, however, hope it changes the anti-bike culture in the Adirondacks which is sort of ingrained in people due to the Forever Wild wilderness ethic that permeates folks who know of and love the Adirondacks. 

Cycling to the top of Cohoes Falls: The Waterford Flight of Locks

At the top of the Waterford Flight of Locks

Those in the Capital Region of New York might not pay much attention to the Erie or Champlain Canals; afterall, that which surrounds us is often least visible.

From the gatehouse of the first lock on the Waterford Flight of Locks

Waterford, New York is the crossroads of the Champlain and Erie Canals. It is also home to the worlds highest elevation gaining series of successive locks. There are single locks both on the Erie Canal and around the world that gain more elevation in a single lock than any of the Waterford Flight of Locks, but none gain the 169ft the Waterford Flight gains in about 1.5 miles to bring boats above Cohoes Falls, which is the Capital Regions version of Niagara Falls. A true engineering feat.

I've lived at the cross roads of the Erie and Champlain Canal for a good chunk of my adult life and like most people didn't pay much attention to it. When the Empire State Trail, which follows greenways and bike paths up the Hudson River from NYC to Albany, and then to Buffalo (west on the Erie Canal) and Canada (north on the Champlain Canal) was unveiled I also dismissed that. The main reason was I hate multi-use paths. Kids, pets, roller bladers, joggers and walkers all share these paths and as a cyclist you are non protected and most at risk for getting injured. A walker can step out of the way at the last second, but if I cyclist makes a last second, last ditch move, it could end with them planting face on the pavement.

The Empire State Trail which is formed by the Hudson River Greeway, the Erie Canal and the Champlain Canal

Over the last 6 years I've gotten deeper and deeper back into recreational cycling and along the way, I've become more and more road averse. Drivers are just very distracted today, even those who aren't on their phones, and cars are bigger, cycling infrastructure on road ways is still largely just a 3ft shoulder in most places, and less in plenty. As a result I've gravitated to gravel, trails, and bike paths.

The rebirth of the Erie Canal as a mostly protected bike path for a good chunk of it's 500 (NYC to Buffalo) miles and it's proximity to Amtrak service out of the Capital Region (there are 3 stations within 20 miles of the Erie and Champlain Canal intersecton) made it very appealing to me over time. I've both ridden the Empire State Trail \locally in the Capital Region and in sections via Amtrak.

Smelling the flowers on the Erie Canal Trail outside of Weedsport, NY

While not a wilderness experience by any means, there are plenty of spots on the EST that you will find yourself surrounded by nature.  

Bone Bruises...Light isn't always right! (The Trap Dike)

(editors note: this has been sitting in my drafts folder for 14 years....time to unleash it, I'm publishing it with the current date but will archive it to Aug 1, 2012)

Group ascending the Trap Dike in the Adirondacks High Peaks. This is a Class 3 (with about 10ft of class 4) scramble

A few weeks ago I did a scramble in the Adirondacks (Trap Dike). I chose to wear running shoes because I knew the group would be moving fast and the approach to the start of the scramble was fairly flat and fairly soft on the feet. Moreover, I knew I'd be swimming, rather than hiking, the most foot unfriendly section of the hike in (Avalanche Pass).

That blue dot in the water is me swimming Avalanche Lake with my pack and gear in a drybag. I swam 400yds in under 10 minutes, and was dressed by the time the hikers arrived

However, I didn't really consider the descent, which of course is where the majority of the impact is on any hike. During the course of the ascent, I switched to my sticky rubber approach shoes (sort of a climbing shoe merged with a running shoe). These are a little small on me, but work perfectly for the ascents, where a tighter shoe offers more control and climbs better. These shoes are very thin to begin with, and my foot got tender under the ball on the ascent of the 3rd and 4th class terrain, but the superficial hot spot turned into deeper pain by the end of the 13 mile day. 

What went wrong? The bottom line, I was carrying 15-20lbs on my back, I was descending a fairly typical northeastern rock hop, I didn't have my trekking poles and I was wearing running shoes designed for light duty trail running on easy trails. 

The end result, a bone bruise on the ball of the foot. I followed up this with a 20 mile weekend in the mountains, and a 30 mile weekend on two of America's toughest trails. Each hike it became more evident that what was wrong wasn't just superficial. 

I admire people who are svelte and nimble enough to get away with ultralight shoes, while hiking along with little or no equipment, but that isn't me. I'm always prepared on the trail, I'm self sufficient. Besides the only way to prepare to carry 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 or more pounds in the mountains is to load up and go hiking. 

Nevertheless, it's ironic that I have solved the issues of my musculoskeletal inflammatory/overuse injuries in the last 8 months by eating a moderately to highly anti-inflammatory diet, only to be back on the injured list with a bone bruise I could have avoided. 

Hopefully someone reading this blog can learn from my own stupidity, which is definitely not that off the mark of what we are fed on a daily basis from the media gurus of the mountain world. After all, just because magazines make a fortune telling you how everything you own is heavy and overbuilt and should be replaced, doesn't mean it is. Sometimes a few extra ounces or a little extra bulk or a little more durability is worth it in the long run.