LOCALadk Magazine

20 Summer 2018 LOCALadk Magazine LOCALadk If a mountain has a fire tower, it has a view, and one of the Adirondacks' best views for the least effort is had from the restored tower on 2,518-foot Azure Mountain, near St. Re- gis Falls, less than an hour's drive north of the tri-lakes area. The tower's centennial is being obser ved by Azure Moun- tain Friends (AMF) on Sunday, July 29. Events are open to the public (for details, go to www.azuremountain.org), but if you really want an unforgettable visual experience, go up during the fall foliage season. AMF places volunteer hosts in the tower on weekends and holidays through Columbus Day, weather permitting. The hardest part of the whole outing may be finding the trailhead. Take NY 458 to a point about halfway between St. Regis Falls and Santa Clara, where Blue Mountain Road (named for an earlier designation for Azure Mountain) heads south. Follow it for about seven miles until you see a rusty old clawfoot bathtub on your right. I am not making this up; it marks a spring, but the water cannot be trusted. A short way beyond it, a small DEC sign, also on the right, points to the parking area. A privy is located here, but opportunistic raccoons regularly make off with the toilet paper before rangers can replace it, so come prepared. There's only one trail, clearly marked with red DEC disks, and it goes to the top; you'd have to try to get lost. It begins as a gently rising jeep road to the site of the cabin where ob- ser vers lived when the tower was staffed. (Like many, it was abandoned in the 1970s when aerial sur veillance took over, before being repaired and reopened to the public in 2003.) From this point, marked by a decrepit stone fireplace and pic- nic table, the route narrows to a foot path and climbs steeply and steadily to the summit. The total ascent for the one-mile hike through mixed hardwood forest is almost 1,000 feet, most of it in the last three-quarters of the distance, but you can pause anytime for a breather, and once on top you will say, " Wow – that was worth it." One favorite rest stop is at about the halfway point – look to your right a few yards, where glacial erratics (immense boulders left over from the last Ice Age) have jumbled themselves into intriguing passag- es and "caves." Eventually, the tower comes into view, and in a few more steps you are at its stairs. There are superb views from cliffs to your left – watch your footing on loose gravel near their brinks. A popular destination is another mas- sive glacial erratic, perched on the edge of the cliffs to the west. Please stay on the paths; the high-altitude vegetation here is fragile, and AMF is attempting to restore it. But the best vistas are from the 35-foot tower's cab. Here you have a 360 -degree panorama. Clock- wise from the north, it embraces the farmlands on both sides of the St. Lawrence River, Lyon Mountain on the edge of the Champlain Valley, distinctive Whiteface and its neighbors, the Great Range beyond Lake Placid, the Sewards, the low- er peaks as far away as the Five Ponds Wilderness, and the sprawling woodlands of several northwest Adirondack wa- tersheds – the St. Regis, the Raquette, the Grasse. Indeed, from atop Azure's tower, you can see most of the northern half of the Adirondack Park, and grasp how the terrain grad- ually shifts from flat valleys to upland forests, foothills, and then mountains. And you will understand why Azure is known as the little mountain with the big views. Other Adirondack fire towers obser ving centennials in 2018 (search the web to learn of any obser vances, and to ascertain their accessibility): Mt. Arab Black Mt. Gore Mt. St. Regis Mt. Vander whacker Mt. Azure Mountain: A Firetower Favorite By Neal Burdick Sandra Hildreth

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