Adirondack Peeks Summer 2025

SR: Kudos on all your efforts with ARTA! Earlier, you served on the Citizen’s Advisory Committee to the High Peaks Wilderness Area. A big concern for the Forty-Sixers in the early 1990s was the fate of the trailless peaks. DEC needed to address the degradation caused by the herdpaths on the trailless peaks in HPUMP and the majority of 46ers surveyed agreed they were against marking and maintaining these trails. I read in Adirondack Archangels you proposed that if a minimum amount of clearing and some marking with cairns were done, hikers could be kept on the best route while brush could be used to close off undesirable herdpaths. You wrote an article for PEEKS that was instrumental in gaining the support of the 46ers on this solution. TG: Yes, after the article there were three letters that were written in response and all said this was a workable solution. SR: You wrote your first influential article for PEEKS magazine in 1973 titled, “The Future of the Adirondack Forty-Sixers,” which discussed whether the 46ers should disband or not, and I asked that you write a reflection on that article fifty years later in the Summer 2023 issue. Your father, along with Richard Babcock, #115, and Trudy Healy, #148, published the first edition of Adirondack PEEKS in the winter of 1963–1964. Do you remember him working on the magazine? You would have been 13 to 14 years old. TG: Yes. I remember him having phone conversations with Trudy Healy and writing pieces that she thought needed to be added to the magazine. SR: I received an email from 46er Munier Salem, #12334, inquiring how PEEKS got its name. He wondered if it was a play on words or if Melvil Dewey, the founder of the Lake Placid Club, had any influence on it. Dewey was the creator of the Dewey Decimal System and responsible for changing the spelling of the Adirondack Lodge to “Adirondak Loj.” In Heaven Up-H’isted-ness! , it says PEEKS w as a clever homophonic play on words. Do you remember discussing the title with your father? TG: Yes, it was meant to be a catchy title that indicated that you were getting little peeks into the 46er organization. SR: You’ve contributed numerous articles to the Adirondack Explorer , a regular feature article for Adirondac chronicling adventures gone awry; you’ve written extensively regarding backcountry cross country skiing; and you’ve edited five Adirondack Mountain Club guides of the High Peaks Region (11th–15th editions)—the latest of which earned you the most prestigious ADK award, The Eleanor F. Brown Communication Award in 2015, which is given in recognition of outstanding achievement and service as an

Tony and Bunny on Cliff in 2018, taken by Nancie Battaglia photo. (Just to show that we didn’t just hike trailed peaks with good views.)

TG: Yes , I started working with my adversary and in 2010 was a founding board member of the Adirondack Recreational Trail Advocates (ARTA). We connected with people who understood how to pull the right levers with local and state governments and get discussions going. Finally, DOT and DEC reviewed the unit management plan and decided on a compromise, which was to restore the rails to Tupper Lake, and remove the tracts from Tupper Lake to Lake Placid for a recreational trail. SR: If you google Adirondack Rail Trail, the history of it credits ARTA for its existence: “A 12-year-old not-for-profit, ARTA has represented over 13,000 citizens, 400 businesses, and six representative governments in the effort to get this world-class all season trail to the construction stage.” TG: Yes. Twelve years later, we changed the business name from Adirondack Recreational Trail Advocates to Adirondack Rail Trail Association, retaining the acronym ARTA.

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