Adirondack Mountain Club
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1922. It has approximately 35,000 members. The ADK is dedicated to the protection and responsible recreational use of the New York State Forest Preserve, parks, wild lands, and waters; it conducts extensive conservation, and natural history programs. There are 27 local chapters throughout New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
Gifford Pinchot, first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, was an early member, and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were life members of the ADK.
The initial organizational meeting, attended by forty people, took place on December 5, 1921 in the Log Cabin atop the Abercrombie & Fitch sporting goods store in New York City. The club's objectives were to develop and maintain hiking trails, to construct and maintain campsites and permanent camps, to publish maps and guidebooks, and to educate the public regarding the conservation of natural resources and prevention of forest fires. One of the first trails constructed by club members was the 133-mile Northville–Placid Trail which traverses the Adirondacks in a north-south orientation.
The club has been instrumental in expanding the Adirondack Park and defending the area from commercial development.
In an introduction to the club's 20th anniversary Annual Report in 1942, then president Roosevelt wrote "[This is] an appropriate time to emphasize the Club's initial statement of policy, adhered to and acted upon vigorously throughout the years, that 'the Adirondack Forest preserve belongs to the people of the State of New York' and that 'we believe in a continuing policy that shall give the widest and wisest use of the Forest to all.' "
