The Debar Mountain Wild Forest is a 122,100-acre (494 km2) tract designated as Wild Forest by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in the northeastern Adirondack Park, just north of Paul Smiths, in Franklin County. The area includes 61,500 acres (249 km2) of State land and 60,600 acres (245 km2) of conservation easement land. The area is served by State Routes NY-3, NY-30 and NY-458.
Activities supported include hiking, cross country skiing, snowshoeing, horse back riding, mountain biking, snowmobiling, hunting, fishing, canoeing and boating. Debar Mountain, at 3,305 feet (1,007 m), offers a broad distant view of the Adirondack High Peaks to the south; Azure Mountain and Debar Meadows are other popular destinations. There are 22 miles (35 km) of mountain bike trails, 16 miles (26 km) of snowmobile trails, 13 miles (21 km) of cross country ski trails, 8 miles (13 km) of horseback riding trails, and two miles (3 km) of canoe carry trails.
Car camping is available at Meacham Lake and Buck Pond Campgrounds. There are also 21 remote campsites and four lean-tos. Other bodies of water include the St. Regis River, Osgood Pond, Jones Pond, Deer River Flow, Mountain Pond, and Lake Kushaqua.
Famous quotes containing the words mountain, wild and/or forest:
“And no one knows what’s yet to come.
For Patrick Pearse had said
That in every generation
Must Ireland’s blood be shed.
From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule—
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of space—out of time.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“Nature herself has not provided the most graceful end for her creatures. What becomes of all these birds that people the air and forest for our solacement? The sparrow seems always chipper, never infirm. We do not see their bodies lie about. Yet there is a tragedy at the end of each one of their lives. They must perish miserably; not one of them is translated. True, “not a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Heavenly Father’s knowledge,” but they do fall, nevertheless.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)