The Adirondack Park’s 6 million acres of pristine waters, mountain peaks and forestlands were not always the main attraction for all vacationers.

Some came for the dumps.

In the 1960s and ’70s, nearly every town in the Adirondack Park had its own dump or landfill. With lax regulations, black bears would descend on these open-air pits and feast on garbage. Tourists and residents descended, too. They lugged cameras, set up lawn chairs and took the family out for a night of wildlife viewing—some of the bears close enough to touch.

“It was a big attraction on a Saturday morning,” said Kevin Hajos, superintendent of public works for Warren County. Hajos used to go with his grandparents to watch the bears at the North Creek landfill.

That was before Gov. George Pataki and his administration decided in the 1990s that the Adirondack Park was not the place for trash.

For the last couple of decades, New Yorkers have spent millions of dollars keeping dumps out of the public-private park. Annual subsidies have helped the two counties that are wholly within the Adirondacks to truck their garbage elsewhere. But those subsidies are now in doubt, and some observers question the practicality of continuing to haul out all of the garbage that tens of thousands of residents and millions of visitors generate each year. The uncertainty could dump a financial load on park residents as local officials figure out how to tackle garbage in the future.