Every year since 2004, the good people at Tucker Farms in Gabriels have carved a complex image into 8 acres of their corn crop. It’s a beautiful scene where the sun shines off of the dark green leaves and the stalks gently dance against a backdrop of High Peaks. Some of our biggest mountains can be seen — Marcy, Algonquin, and Whiteface all decorate the jagged horizon — and the sky above is open and wide. Not so much in the maze. The well-defined-but-narrow passages twist and curve in every direction. There are intersections where several routes converge; there are long straightaways and hallways with lefts and rights forking off every 10 feet. 

Long before Lake Placid became synonymous with Winter Olympics, and before it was home to Ironman triathlons and World Cup events, it was known for its golf courses. The signature courses here were designed by some of the greats: John Van Kleek, Walter Hagen, Seymour Dunn, Alex Findlay, and Alistair Mackenzie — who also designed Augusta National and Cypress Point. Former Masters and U.S. Open champion Craig Wood grew up caddying here. But enough of the name dropping, let’s discuss the views and the courses. 

It was a warm, drippy, and muggy morning when I stepped onto the Roosevelt Truck Trail off Route 28N the other week. The trail – actually a grassy two-track — is a relatively easy hike for birders in search of boreal species, which is precisely why I was there. The rolling trail (reached 1.6 miles from the Boreas River Bridge and 3.7 miles south of the junction of 28N and Blue Ridge Road) initially rose through a mixed forest and I started my day’s list with Magnolia Warblers which seemed to be the most vocal of the warblers I found on the late summer day. I would soon add the likes of Nashville, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, Black-and-white, Canada, and Northern Parula, along with quite a few others.