So I've been living up by myself in the Adirondack mountains for nearing six months now. In retrospect, when it comes to being outside, hiking, being on water, being on terrain, THIS is where you want to be. I'm closer to the little ass town of North Creek more-so than an I am anywhere else. Basically right on state route 8, between North Creek, Warrensburg, and Queensburry. Close by is Gore mountain, and directly behind me is Oven mountain.
If you're a little bitch and you cant handle a lot of insects, or you hate large amounts of snow, or torrential downpours, or the threat of a random 300 pound black bear ripping your face off in one swipe, then please stay home and don't complain around me while you are here. Because once you get past the obvious imperfections you are standing somewhere unlike any other place on earth.
I came up here at the end of last year, pretty much the begging of an atypical NY winter. 2013 was actually heavy for us on this part of the continent, and especially up here. I mean I've seen lots of snow before, I've seen the record of like 7 in buffalo that happened between 2000-2001. but never have I seen 3 feet of snow accumulate in 1 and half hours before. Holy. Shit. The cool thing, is if you are active in the winter, you'll be happier than a pig in shit here. Tons of places to go skiing. Mt Gore, Whiteface, and the other, I dunno... some other 47 mountains that are scattered throughout the 6.8 million acres of state land? there's tons of places to get the sticks and wrap yourself up like a human burrito. Loads of snowmobile and Cross country trails as well.
and man is it cold up here. Being outside in the winter is awesome but be ready for -30 wind chill, i think the coldest it got was easily close to -35F early this year. Don't go outside without fucking close on you retard get back in and put some booties on or some shit you WILL die.
Towards spring its all rain and melting and flooding. BUT this is the cool part. If you've ever been white water river rafting, and you really enjoy that shit, then this is where you come for it. Starting at the Indian Lake is the source of the Indian River, which connects into the Hudson closer down towards by North Creek. The run I went for was 17 miles, about 4 and a half hours of rafting down the side of a mountain. Flood levels where about 5 ft. higher than normal conditions, made for a very active rafting experience. shitty thing was it was the spring so that melt water was like, right around 32F, so even in your wetsuit, after 4 hours of constantly being drenched chilled me like I've never been before.
TL;DR
If you like being right out in the middle of some crazy ass forest country get your ass up here.