Adirondack Mountains, NY 7/3/14

We drove to Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondack Mountains of upper New York State.  Roadside scenes…

 

The Adirondacks are the only mountains in the eastern U.S. that are not part of the Appalachians.  They belong to the Laurentian Shield, which extends north and underlies the eastern half of Canada.  The Laurentian Shield is made up of some of the oldest rocks on Earth; much of the exposed rock in the Adirondacks, including Whiteface Mountain, is one billion years old.

We drove the lengthy, winding road up Whiteface Mountain...

which ends near the 5,000 foot summit.  A weather observatory and meteorological station were built at the top of the mountain in the 1930s and are still in use.  They are accessible through a long tunnel bored into the mountain which accesses an elevator that ascends 27 stories to the summit.

Scenes from the summit and summit trail.

Lake Placid is visible in the background.

The climate at the summit is harsh and cold, similar to the Arctic tundra.  Plant life which survives here is small, fragile and has a short growing season.

Roadside scenes as we drove down the mountain...

In the afternoon we stopped at a quiet pond on our way south...

 as we drove to the Wild Center, an indoor/outdoor museum of the Adirondacks in Tupper Lake, NY.