areas

Kayaking Barnum Pond, July 2011

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Barnum Pond, right behind the Adirondack Vistors Intreprative Center, offers some great views, and can be accessed for free from NY 30, one mile north of VIC and one mile south of Mountain Pond Camping Area. Click on the map below, to display a full-size version, perfect for printing and slapping in a plastic bag, to strap on your kayak.

Here are some pictures I took while was paddling around this lake, proceeding from NY 30, along the Southern shore until I got to the Barnum Pond outlet, which you can continue on for about a mile until a beaver dam. You can portage around the beaver dam, if you choose, however a 1/2 mile below that is a series of man-made dams in Paul Smiths you must go around, to get down to Lower St Regis Lake.

Rainy Tuesday Morning

Edge of Barnum Pond

Adirondack VIC Observation Deck

Barnum Pond Outlet

Treeline

Through the Marshlands of the VIC

Clouds Over Barnum Pond Outlet

Lighthouse Stairway Window

Splader Dack and Boreas Forest

Heading Back to Barnum Pond

Boreal Trees

Reflections

Southern Edge of Barnum Pond

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Spatterdock

South West on Barnum Pond

West Kill Valley

St Regis Mountain Across Barnum Pond

If you visit here, consider camping at Mountain Pond.

Rural and Urban Areas

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Rural America and Urban America are both fundamentally different and also directly inter-related. One policy may make sense for one community but directly conflict with the values or virtues of another community. In some cases, one policy will benefit one community at the detriment of another community, but in more times then not the difference is ideological.

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We live in an era with low-cost high-speed transportation that makes it easy for most people to intermix between rural and urban areas. Different cultures may not mix or meet due to environmental differences, but there is a constant possibility that urban and rural people, goods, and services will meet. This level of commerce can cause problems. Technology makes it possible to create levels of environmental harm that can move between both environments in the form pollution or nuisance.

Yet, the biggest threat to both of these areas is intolerance and ideology. People have viewpoints based on the environment that they are socialized in, and they tend to be intolerant of those who are different then themselves. People too often know how others should live and conduct their lives, without trying to put themselves in somebody\’s else shoes.

Route 358 Towards Catskills