The differences of the Whites verses ADKS

[bikehikeskifish]

Interesting! ADK state park is 25 sq mi larger.

ADKs: 9,375 sq mi (24,281 km²) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adirondack_Park
NH: 9,350 sq mi (24,217 km²) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire

Our highpoint is still taller than your highpoint.

Tim

 

[NewHampshire]

The adirondack park is larger than the entire state of New Hampshire.

That I did not know either, but what I find odd is 99% of the talk about the ADK's involves the High Peaks region, but hardly anything mentioned about the rest of the park. Is there a reason?

Brian

 

[ADKdremn]

That I did not know either, but what I find odd is 99% of the talk about the ADK's involves the High Peaks region, but hardly anything mentioned about the rest of the park. Is there a reason?

Mostly because this website and ADKHighpeaks site are pretty much peakbagging sites and there is nothing wrong with that. I'll admit, I'm partial to the High Peaks and haven't seen a whole lot of the other parts of the Adirondack Park, but there is way more to the park than the High Peaks. I'll someone with more knowledge respond with a little more detail. I'm guessing there are more bodies of water than mountains in the Adirondacks. If you visit www.adkforum.com you'll find a lot more info on the lesser known areas of the park.

 

[giggy]

who cares - they both suck compared to out west.

 

[ColdRiverRun]

Interesting! ADK state park is 25 sq mi larger.
Our highpoint is still taller than your highpoint.
Tim

I hear it's not length (or relative height) but girth that makes the difference!

 

[bikehikeskifish]

I hear it's not length (or relative height) but girth that makes the difference!

Yeah, but if we multiply the area by the height of the tallest peak, NH will have more volume

Tim

 

[Fat Tuesday]

Lakes

this is an interesting thread- thanks all. I grew up in NY and vacations in the Adks, Catskills and Shawangunks seeded my interest in hiking (the lemon squeeze was my favorite and the only hike that I can actually recall!!).

Since then, and because I live in Boston, I have exclusively hiked in the whites (47 of 48), which I dearly love.

My Q is, what is the deal with the differences in the lakes? As a child in NY I remember diving into beautiful, deep lakes mid-hike. The Whites have so few swimmable lakes. there are some great (freezing cold) swimming holes here and there and some lovely running water, but nothing like NY.

wondering what the geological deal is- why are the ponds and lakes in the whites so shallow? why did the NH lakes region get all the water?

maybe it is a perception, because I spent less time at high elevation (where it is obviously shallower) as a child than I do now?

 

[prino]

Yeah, but if we multiply the area by the height of the tallest peak, NH will have more volume

Tim

Originally Posted by View Post
I hear it's not length (or relative height) but girth that makes the difference!

Remember boys.... It's not size that counts!

 

[Jay H]

The ADKs are growing faster than the whites so in say 7 million years, the ADKs will be the tallest peaks in the east... Can't wait! Hahahaha..

As far as the lakes in the ADKs (supposedly 3000ish of them) vrs the whites. I think the ice age had more of an effect of the ADKs (laurentian in geology) vrs the Whites (Acadian in geology and from Europe (so we could call the Whites the discarded Euro-Trash))... I presume the whites is probably more tectonic and that perhaps gives more mass but less of the cutting-out-of-the-earth-to-form-ponds-and-lakes effect. Just a peon's guess though.

Jay

 

[WinterWarlock]

That I did not know either, but what I find odd is 99% of the talk about the ADK's involves the High Peaks region, but hardly anything mentioned about the rest of the park. Is there a reason?

Brian

Just to echo what ADKdremn said - stop over to ADKForum, where the areas outside the 85 acres of the High Peaks are discussed...

You are correct - but these get the most play (and traffic), but with 6million minus 85 acres of non-high peaks area, there's a lot of wiggle room out there.

How are the trout in the Whites? Lots of native trout species in the ADK's -

It's all good, isn't it!

 

[Tom Rankin]

No, but they have strange abandoned towns from the 1700-1800's that have just grown in more. Lots of old cellar holes, logging parts, old camps, etc., that are much harder to recognize.

On another note, how many plane crash sites are in the ADKs?

There are a fair number, including one just off the summit of 4600' Wright. It seems the Catskills have even more.

If you spread out from the ADK High peaks, there are fire towers and lots of other great hikes.

 

[WinterWarlock]

There are a fair number, including one just off the summit of 4600' Wright. It seems the Catskills have even more.

If you spread out from the ADK High peaks, there are fire towers and lots of other great hikes.

There's a pretty cool site about Central NY plane crashes -

 

[deanmacg]

WAY more trailheads in the Whites hence more bailout points if needed.
I feel more committed hiking in the Daks.

 

[Umsaskis]

What a fun question. I've thought of it many times, having done the NE 111 (115? etc.) A few major things I noticed:

The Adirondacks consist of large amorphous blobs of mountain, each blob comprising multiple peaks. The Whites, on the other hand, consist of long ridges, not blobs, comprising multiple peaks. This difference is especially apparent when looking at many of the mountain masses from Giant. Rocky Peak Ridge is somewhat of an exception - you feel much more like you are on a White Mountain ridge when climbing that one and looking out from it to the northeast.

Adirondack trails, where there are rocks, have more large, smooth, round rocks in the trail; White Mountain trails have rougher, more jagged rocks, it seems to me.

There are only two approach trails in the Whites that leave me complaining and weary coming out on a winter night, and those are the Lincoln Woods Trail for getting Bondcliff or Owl's Head, or the Zealand Trail for Bond and West Bond. There are several such trails in the Adirondacks, on which I have spilt blood and tears in the snow and learned many good lessons about hypothermia.

Ah, the water in the Adirondacks! As separate destinations, and enroute to the peaks. It reminds me of Maine.

Lower elevations in the Adirondacks contain a plethora of northern white cedar and hemlock (hemlock more in the south). New Hampshire doesn't have a ton of this. Again, reminiscent of Maine, at least for the cedar.

There is some kind of irridescent, bluish purple specks in the rocks on many of the high peaks. I have no idea what it is, but I haven't noticed it in the whites.

Lastly, the Adirondacks end, in all directions, with definite boundaries. The Whites connect with mountain ranges that go on, and on, and on, until you hit the ocean. But in spite of this difference, you can get way out into the wilderness much better in the Adirondacks than you can in the Whites.

 

[WhiteMTHike]

I've only hiked the 'Daks once but I loved it. I'd say the most obvious difference I found was the ground is much softer in the 'Daks thus I cam across more erosion problems on the trails I was on. Then again NH is the "Granite State".

 

[NewHampshire]

Lower elevations in the Adirondacks contain a plethora of northern white cedar and hemlock (hemlock more in the south). New Hampshire doesn't have a ton of this. Again, reminiscent of Maine, at least for the cedar.

Yeah, I think thats because those New Yorkers learned early on to protect their woods as New Hampshire and Maine stripped them clean by loggers

Brian

 

[Neil]

The difference between the Whites and the Dacks can be explained thusly:

A thread like this would run maybe 30 posts in the Dacks. In the Whites it should be good for about 200 posts.

 

[bikehikeskifish]

The difference between the Whites and the Dacks can be explained thusly:

A thread like this would run maybe 30 posts in the Dacks. In the Whites it should be good for about 200 posts.

Only 43 more to go.

Tim

 

[moonrock]

The Adirondacks consist of large amorphous blobs of mountain, each blob comprising multiple peaks. The Whites, on the other hand, consist of long ridges, not blobs, comprising multiple peaks.

There is some kind of irridescent, bluish purple specks in the rocks on many of the high peaks. I have no idea what it is, but I haven't noticed it in the whites.

The specks in Adirondacks are thumb-sized crystals of Labradorite, CaAl(x)Si(x)O8. They are unique to the central Adirondacks because that is (the core of) Anorthosite bedrock. I am less familiar with White Mtn Geology but I do not know of any Anorthosite existing there. It formed mostly in the Precambrian/Proterozoic, not in the (much younger) Paleozoic, when most New England rocks formed. The central Whites contain more common (granitic) igneous and metamorphic bedrock types.

MR

 

[moonrock]

The ADKs are growing faster than the whites so in say 7 million years, the ADKs will be the tallest peaks in the east... Can't wait! Hahahaha..

As far as the lakes in the ADKs (supposedly 3000ish of them) vrs the whites. I think the ice age had more of an effect of the ADKs (laurentian in geology) vrs the Whites (Acadian in geology and from Europe (so we could call the Whites the discarded Euro-Trash))...

Jay

From web-based state relief maps, New Hampshire apparently has mainly north-south ridges and drainage (via Conn River or the coast) with secondary east-west river valleys connecting and cutting down through the mountain ridgelines.

Central Adirondack valleys follow NE/SW trending fault lines, which predate New England. Adirondack drainage is divided between the Saint Lawrence (Northwest flow) Lake Champlain (Northeast flow) and the Hudson River (Southeast flow). But .

The BIG Picture is that the Adirondack rocks are around 1.2 billion years old, and the Whites geology is (mostly) Acadian/Alleghenian, or about 1/3 (or less) as old (Older Grenville rocks MAY locally be thrust to the surface in the Whites).

From what I read, the Dacks wore down flat at least once, whereas the younger Whites may not ever have done so (and there are not younger sedimentary rock formations "lapping onto" the Whites).

The current uplift and gross topography of both mountain "ranges" FAR pre-dates the (Pleistocene) Ice Age(s). But ALPINE glacial features (which come before and after the big CONTINENTAL ice caps) are more evident in the higher Whites (Tuckerman and Huntington ravines are obvious "cirques") than in the Adirondacks.

The BIG lakes in NH are mainly south-southeast of the massif of Paleozoic igneous rock that forms the Whites/Presidentials. In NY the preponderance of lakes could result from multiple causes:

1) Hardness of bedrock and its orientation vs glacial flow.

2) How much outwash/ice contact sediment is available to surround isolated glacial "bergs"; the latter melt and form "pothole" lakes.

3) Difference in the amount/texture of bedrock to the (north): What gets ground up by the continental glacier up there affects the sediment available to the landscape to the south.

4) Exactly where moraines form.

5) Who (much later) built DAMS, and WHERE.



MR