Lake George

BOLTON LANDING, N.Y. - We follow a family of ducks out of the calm waters of the channel, paddling past the sloping lawn and docks of the Sagamore Hotel, to reach the open water of Lake George. In the middle of the lake sits the primitive-looking Dome Island, a rounded forest of trees that as a boy I thought was home to a cyclops or some other monster. Behind Dome is a magnificent view of uninterrupted forest forming a silhouette of mountains against the sky. This section of the 31-mile-long lake is more like a river, narrow and hemmed in by the peaks, offering vintage Adirondack beauty...

LAKE GEORGE, N.Y. - A man who apparently was breaking up with one of his daughters' mothers used a rifle to kill his two young girls and then shot himself to death at an upstate campground, authorities said. The girls, ages 3 and 10, may have been sleeping when Adam Parcells shot them Monday night, Warren County Sheriff Bud York said. Nobody reported hearing the shootings, which happened after a rainy day that saw many people leave at the end of the long Labor Day weekend.

LAKE GEORGE, N.Y. - A man who apparently was breaking up with one of his daughters' mothers used a rifle to kill his two young girls and then shot himself to death at an upstate campground, authorities said. The girls, ages 3 and 10, may have been sleeping when Adam Parcells shot them Monday night, Warren County Sheriff Bud York said. Nobody reported hearing the shootings, which happened after a rainy day that saw many people leave at the end of the long Labor Day weekend.

QUEENSBURY, N.Y. - Daniel Claps, a singing cowboy in the 1940s who spent a half century "deputizing" young visitors to an upstate New York amusement park, has died. Mr. Claps, 90, died Saturday at Cobleskill Hospital. He portrayed Marshal Wild Windy Bill McKay at the Great Escape amusement park near Lake George. Dressed in a white cowboy hat and Western outfit, he entertained thousands of youngsters at the park's Ghost Town attraction each summer as he led them in capturing bank robbers and marching the bad guys off to jail.

BOLTON LANDING, N.Y. — A thumbnail-sized clam blamed for clouding the azure bays of Lake Tahoe high in the Sierra Nevada has turned up in a mountain-ringed Adirondack lake renowned for its spring-fed waters. The invasive Asian clam, Corbicula fluminea, is known as the “golden clam’’ in the aquarium trade and the “good luck clam’’ in its native Southeast Asia. But in Lake George, scientists call it an unwelcome invader that could cause ecological and economic harm.

QUEENSBURY, N.Y. - Daniel Claps, a singing cowboy in the 1940s who spent a half century "deputizing" young visitors to an upstate New York amusement park, has died. Mr. Claps, 90, died Saturday at Cobleskill Hospital. He portrayed Marshal Wild Windy Bill McKay at the Great Escape amusement park near Lake George. Dressed in a white cowboy hat and Western outfit, he entertained thousands of youngsters at the park's Ghost Town attraction each summer as he led them in capturing bank robbers and marching the bad guys off to jail.

Authorities say a 14-year-old Vermont boy has been injured after he fell 30 feet from the top of a waterfall in the eastern Adirondacks. David Winchell, a spokesman with the state Department of Environmental Conservation, says the boy fell around noon Thursday at Shelving Rock Falls in Fort Ann, on the eastern shore of Lake George 60 miles northeast of Albany. Winchell says state forest rangers and local emergency crews treated the boy at the scene before he was transported by ambulance and helicopter to Glens Falls Hospital.

In his native Netherlands, Wessel Kok liked to challenge himself by completing the "Elfstedentocht" or "Eleven Cities Tour," a 200-kilometer (125-mile) speed-skating tour over frozen canals and lakes that loops through 11 cities. The event is so popular that registration is capped at 20,000. Often, though, winters are not cold enough for the event, so skaters go to an alternative tour held yearly in Austria on Weissensee Lake. "I don't do it for the time, just to finish it," Kok, 39, said of the tour, which lasts from before sunrise until after sunset.

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. -- It was on a drive up to Lake George that my fiancé, Matt, and I decided to stop for the night in New Paltz, a funky mountain town in the Hudson River Valley about 70 miles north of New York. When I lived in the city, I was among the weekend warriors who escaped to do outdoorsy things like climb the crags of Shawangunk Ridge (or the Gunks, as the locals call it) and attend trapeze school. But most trips were day trips, and I never did get to stay at one of the Victorian bed-and-breakfasts I passed on the way in or out of town.

LAKE GEORGE, N.Y. -- A tour boat that capsized on a New York lake, killing 20 people, did not have the required number of crew members aboard, leading state regulators to suspend licenses for all five vessels belonging to the company that operated the tour, officials said yesterday. The Ethan Allen, which overturned Sunday on Lake George while carrying 47 elderly tourists, was required by state boating regulations to have two crew members, said Wendy Gibson, spokeswoman for the state Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation.

Authorities say a 14-year-old Vermont boy has been injured after he fell 30 feet from the top of a waterfall in the eastern Adirondacks. David Winchell, a spokesman with the state Department of Environmental Conservation, says the boy fell around noon Thursday at Shelving Rock Falls in Fort Ann, on the eastern shore of Lake George 60 miles northeast of Albany. Winchell says state forest rangers and local emergency crews treated the boy at the scene before he was transported by ambulance and helicopter to Glens Falls Hospital.

BOLTON LANDING, N.Y. — A thumbnail-sized clam blamed for clouding the azure bays of Lake Tahoe high in the Sierra Nevada has turned up in a mountain-ringed Adirondack lake renowned for its spring-fed waters. The invasive Asian clam, Corbicula fluminea, is known as the “golden clam’’ in the aquarium trade and the “good luck clam’’ in its native Southeast Asia. But in Lake George, scientists call it an unwelcome invader that could cause ecological and economic harm.

BOLTON LANDING, N.Y. - We follow a family of ducks out of the calm waters of the channel, paddling past the sloping lawn and docks of the Sagamore Hotel, to reach the open water of Lake George. In the middle of the lake sits the primitive-looking Dome Island, a rounded forest of trees that as a boy I thought was home to a cyclops or some other monster. Behind Dome is a magnificent view of uninterrupted forest forming a silhouette of mountains against the sky. This section of the 31-mile-long lake is more like a river, narrow and hemmed in by the peaks, offering vintage...

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. -- It was on a drive up to Lake George that my fiancé, Matt, and I decided to stop for the night in New Paltz, a funky mountain town in the Hudson River Valley about 70 miles north of New York. When I lived in the city, I was among the weekend warriors who escaped to do outdoorsy things like climb the crags of Shawangunk Ridge (or the Gunks, as the locals call it) and attend trapeze school. But most trips were day trips, and I never did get to stay at one of the Victorian bed-and-breakfasts I passed on the way in or out of town.

Time for summer to slip away. In a couple of weeks, those long and lazy days on the beach or at the lake will be sunny memories. Fortunately, the fall travel season has delights of its own: mostly balmy weather, lower prices, smaller crowds. Those are all reasons I am waiting till late September to scratch Mount Rushmore off my life list of places that must be seen. Samples of what's in store: The Sagamore, a private island resort on Lake George in New York's Adirondack Mountains, has put together a Land, Air and Lake Getaway , Sept.

How to get there Lake George Village is 53 miles north of Albany and 220 miles from Boston. Take the Massachusetts Turnpike (Interstate 90) west to I-87 north, to exits 21 and 22. Bolton Landing is at exit 24. Where to stay Adirondack Park Motel 5860 Lakeshore Drive (Route 9N) Bolton Landing 518-644-9800 www.adirondackparkmotel.net Clean, rustic cottages and efficiency motel rooms. Rooms and efficiencies $61-$205 per night, including continental breakfast.

Time for summer to slip away. In a couple of weeks, those long and lazy days on the beach or at the lake will be sunny memories. Fortunately, the fall travel season has delights of its own: mostly balmy weather, lower prices, smaller crowds. Those are all reasons I am waiting till late September to scratch Mount Rushmore off my life list of places that must be seen. Samples of what's in store: The Sagamore, a private island resort on Lake George in New York's Adirondack Mountains, has put together a Land, Air and Lake Getaway , Sept.

Fifth in an occasional series profiling US Olympic hopefuls training for the Summer Games in London. It's not as though he was the first guy to splash around in Walden Pond. Henry David Thoreau paddled across it, generations of skinny-dippers have immersed themselves, and triathletes train there. But when Alex Meyer does his extended up-and-backs at the Concord swimming hole, he eventually attracts a cadre of the curious. "They'll look at me like I have two heads," said the 23-year-old Harvard graduate.

LAKE GEORGE, N.Y. -- The honky-tonk starts shortly after you exit the interstate an hour north of Albany, and make your way toward Lake George Village, on the southern shoreline of the "Queen of American Lakes. " There's Goony Golf at Gift World, Waterslide World, and the A&W, complete with carhops, so retro that it belongs in a Thomas Kinkade painting. It reaches a fever pitch on Canada Street, the village's congested main drag, with Fun World, Kontiki Temporary Tattoos (its motto: "Wait 'Til Mom Sees This")

LAKE GEORGE, N.Y. -- A tour boat that capsized on a New York lake, killing 20 people, did not have the required number of crew members aboard, leading state regulators to suspend licenses for all five vessels belonging to the company that operated the tour, officials said yesterday. The Ethan Allen, which overturned Sunday on Lake George while carrying 47 elderly tourists, was required by state boating regulations to have two crew members, said Wendy Gibson, spokeswoman for the state Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation.