Last January, I penned a column on an experience I had at SUNY Cortland with the woman of my dreams (https://tinyurl.com/3wa3cntn). Unfortunately that’s all it was — a dream. Imagine my surprise when the story got picked up by the SUNY Cortland Alumni Association and was featured in ...

There was an excellent letter to the Enterprise last week from a writer in Remson lamenting that too many aspiring 46ers put more importance on “... earning the 46-peak badge ... than with truly experiencing and understanding the Adirondacks.” I used to wholeheartedly agree with this, ...

Not counting Linda Leydon — who I kissed in the back of the bus in third grade — or Crystal Waters — who I sent a love letter to when my family moved from Long Island to the Finger Lakes and never heard from again — my girlfriends were few and far between. Then there was Sally ...

Back in my day, the 1970s, I didn’t have to walk through snow uphill both ways to school, but I’ll tell you what, backcountry skiing was a lot more challenging than today. Instead of metal-edge, lightweight skis with high-tech bindings, climbing skins, and plastic boots we had skinny ...

On these subzero winter days, reading is sometimes wiser than going outdoors. A reflection of my age, no doubt. To ward off cabin fever, I’ve been rereading some of the mountaineering classics. I decided on the oldest mountaineering book in my collection. Robert Bates’ “Five Miles ...

The compass has been around for over 2,000 years and is a simple device. If you put a sliver of magnetized metal on a small piece of wood and float it in a bowl of water, it will always point north/south. While the compass itself has gotten much more sophisticated over the years, the concept ...