Mining company turned logging company J & J Roger's hired contractors to log in the Indian Pass and Avalanche Pass areas in the early 1900s (on land the company owned). During this time they also employed local contractors to log the Johns Brook Valley, again on land they owned. After thirty years in which these lands were logged two different times, J & J Rogers sold these lands to the state in the early 1920s (when the company realized it was low on easily accessible trees and that it would now be cheaper to import pulp for their Ausable Forks paper mill). As many might realize, a small slice of this land was quickly bought by the Adirondack Mountain Club for their soon to be constructed Johns Brook Lodge as well as several private families that still own camps in that area...
The JBL region was logged in the late 1800s and again in the second decade of the 1900s (by Orlando Beede of Keene Valley). His logging camp was up on a hill at what is now a tenting area right where the north-side trail takes a sharp left and heads steeply down towards the Ranger's cabin. A few minutes before this tenting area the old logging road leaves the north-side trail and traverses down to the field of the Ranger's cabin which served as the header where logs were piled up and eventually loaded onto sleds for the long haul out (the river was never used). Older hikers will remember this logging road descent to the Ranger's cabin as the north-side hiking trail many years ago.
A locally famous character/hermit lived in this area for over 30 years - Mel Hathaway. His original dwelling site can still be seen hiking into JBL. Just before crossing a grassy, sloping area in the trail about 10 minutes before the tenting site/Beede logging camp (perhaps 2.75miles from the Garden), look to your left and you may notice an old cellar hole. Look to the right of the trail and stonework will become apparent. This was Mel's first dwelling and what I think may have been part of the first logging camp built back in the valley (I'm planning to check this area out this Spring). Mel later moved from this site to his more famous home - which was the abandoned J & J Rogers office building and is now the site upon which the Johns Brook Lodge currently sits. The apple tree and rhubarb plant that still grow there and passed today by many hikers, were planted by Mel...Mel was forced to leave his home in the mid 1920s and eventually lived with his daughter in an urban area. The story goes he was constantly getting lost in his new surroundings (never having been in a city before) but soon figured out that he could find his way back home by carrying his axe wherever he went and blazing the telephone poles...
The first logging operation built the road on the south side of Johns Brook and crossed at the first flume, which is currently on a small inholding of private land, perhaps 1.5 miles up the current South-Side Trail. When the second logging operation took place, the road was extended on the south side of the brook and crossed where the current bridge crosses at the Ranger's cabin. The logging operations carried on for perhaps 1 mile above JBL where an incline up an esker is reached on the trail towards Marcy. The logging ended here as this spot marked the boundary of land owned by the Ausable Club at that time...
The JBL region was logged in the late 1800s and again in the second decade of the 1900s (by Orlando Beede of Keene Valley). His logging camp was up on a hill at what is now a tenting area right where the north-side trail takes a sharp left and heads steeply down towards the Ranger's cabin. A few minutes before this tenting area the old logging road leaves the north-side trail and traverses down to the field of the Ranger's cabin which served as the header where logs were piled up and eventually loaded onto sleds for the long haul out (the river was never used). Older hikers will remember this logging road descent to the Ranger's cabin as the north-side hiking trail many years ago.
A locally famous character/hermit lived in this area for over 30 years - Mel Hathaway. His original dwelling site can still be seen hiking into JBL. Just before crossing a grassy, sloping area in the trail about 10 minutes before the tenting site/Beede logging camp (perhaps 2.75miles from the Garden), look to your left and you may notice an old cellar hole. Look to the right of the trail and stonework will become apparent. This was Mel's first dwelling and what I think may have been part of the first logging camp built back in the valley (I'm planning to check this area out this Spring). Mel later moved from this site to his more famous home - which was the abandoned J & J Rogers office building and is now the site upon which the Johns Brook Lodge currently sits. The apple tree and rhubarb plant that still grow there and passed today by many hikers, were planted by Mel...Mel was forced to leave his home in the mid 1920s and eventually lived with his daughter in an urban area. The story goes he was constantly getting lost in his new surroundings (never having been in a city before) but soon figured out that he could find his way back home by carrying his axe wherever he went and blazing the telephone poles...
The first logging operation built the road on the south side of Johns Brook and crossed at the first flume, which is currently on a small inholding of private land, perhaps 1.5 miles up the current South-Side Trail. When the second logging operation took place, the road was extended on the south side of the brook and crossed where the current bridge crosses at the Ranger's cabin. The logging operations carried on for perhaps 1 mile above JBL where an incline up an esker is reached on the trail towards Marcy. The logging ended here as this spot marked the boundary of land owned by the Ausable Club at that time...
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