The St. Regis Wilderness Region:
The Undiscovered Country
 Hohmeyer's Lake Clear Lodge and our Adirondack Alps experience is in the midst of the St. Regis Wilderness region - the largest intact wilderness area east of the Mississippi - and largely undiscovered. It is also we believe, the "capitol" of the Adirondacks with unfathomable recreational, cultural, historical and environmental area attractions. Out of your handcrafted lodging you are minutes away from unparalleled solitude, or internationally recognized cultural and sporting events.
Directly From our 22 acre "Great Camp" Style Property
Our 22 acre "great camp" style estate sits amidst 18,000 acres of 58 bodies of water in the Northeast quadrant of the 6 million acre Adirondack Park. From our property you can directly access the Old Forge to Lake Placid Recreational Trail, the Jack Rabbit X-Country Ski Trail that takes you to the New York State Visitor Interpretive Center or to Lake Placid and the Olympic region; and the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation Fish Hatchery in Lake Clear. From our beach you can travel through countless bodies of water on New York State's only designated wilderness canoe area meaning that it is free of all motorized traffic. Directly from our property are simply endless miles of hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, canoeing, kayaking, boating, fishing, snowmobiling and ice fishing. Perhaps the greatest benefit of all: we believe the greatest sunset mountain lake view off our beach in the entire Adirondacks. Our springs, summers and falls brings immense solitude and peace as Lake Clear even though it is NYS's 28th largest lake has no public boat access and half of the Lake is owned by NYS, while in the winter the softly falling snow is complimented by fun outdoor activities of skiing, snowmobiling, ice fishing and hiking.
Adirondack Trail: The Lodge is located on the Adirondack Trail (Rt. 30) Highway that runs north-south through the Adirondack Park and is a great scenic drive or bike.
Lake Clear
 Lake Clear is a unique body of water as it is the dividing line between those waters that run north and those that run east and south. The rivers that run to the North go to the St. Lawrence River that separates the United States from Canada and connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. The waters that run east and south flow to Lake Champlain that borders New York State with Vermont and New England and south to the Hudson River and beyond. It is 65ft. at its deepest point and is approximately 1.5 to 2 miles in circumference. It is excellent for boating, fishing (the famous lure "the Lake Clear Wobbler is named from it), wind surfing, birding, swimming, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling and contemplation.
Lake Clear Junction was a critical commerce point in Adirondack history. The Lake Placid to Old Forge rail line split off here and connected Lake Champlain, Canada and Lake Placid with Old Forge, Utica and eventually New York City. The hey-day of the rail was circa 1880's - 1980 when it then ceased operating following the completion of the 1980 Winter Olympic Games. The Old Forge-Lake Placid Recreational Trail as it is now commonly called is currently used as a hiking, snowmobiling and cross-country skiing trail. Efforts are underway to initiate a tourist train throughout this trail.
Out Your Handcrafted Lodging Door: The St. Regis Wilderness Region
 The St. Regis Canoe Area is noted for its pristine spring-fed ponds, short canoe carries, and exhilarating wild spaces. It all adds up to serenity. Fishing is superb with brook, brown and rainbow trout, small and large mouth bass, pike, splake and landlocked salmon.
The 58 ponded waters of the St. Regis Canoe Area form the headwaters of three rivers: the Middle Branch and West Branch of the St. Regis River, and the Saranac River. It is an area where one can escape civilization and find an Adirondacks not much different than before human incursions. Yet, it is amazingly close to many ports of our Adirondack communities. With such a vast array of ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, the St. Regis Canoe Area offers some of the best 4-season recreation in New York State. In the summer enjoy exclusive non-motorized boating and in the winter miles of back country hiking and cross-country skiing though areas known as the "Seven Carries that you can access through the NYS DEC Lake Clear Fish Hatchery or the other end on the St. Regis lakes. Travel through Little Green Pond, St. Regis Pond, Little Long Pond, Bear Pond, and Bog Pond. As you visit the St. Regis Lower and Upper lakes you will find some of the most majestic great camp architecture in the Adirondacks as well as the home of the "Idem" a unique sailboat designed specifically for racing on these lakes.
The other well known but longer excursion is the "Nine Carries" that takes you into the northern sections of the St. Regis Wilderness region. This approximate 12 mile trek can also begin or end at the Lake Clear Fish Hatchery but the other common point is off of Hoel Pond. Waters include Mud Pond, Ochre Pond, Fish Pond, Little long Pond, Kit FoxPond (our family is building an experimental float plane of the same name!), Nellie Pond,Long Pond, Slang Pond, Turtle and Hoel Ponds. Always prepare appropriately when outing in our area and when paddling remember there are many portages, some short and some long that you will need to take. The area offers ample places to camp overnight if you wish. There are many maps available including NYS DEC maps, regional and county maps as well as publications such as the Adirondack Canoe Map and guidebooks from the Adirondack Mountain Club among others.
As you gaze from our lakeshore you will look directly at St. Regis Mountain. It has one of the few remaining fire towers in the Adirondacks. It is also a good intermediate climb taking approximately 1.5 - 2 hours to go up. It offers one of the best views in the Adirondacks as it sits in the midst of the 52 bodies of water that make up the St. Regis Wilderness region and it directly faces the High Peaks and Olympic region.
Within a 5-minute Drive from your Hand-crafted Lodging
 Within a five-minute drive are other access points to the 18,000 acres and 58 bodies of water of the St. Regis Wilderness Area excellent for hiking, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, canoeing and fishing; the NYS Visitor Interpretive Center (description); Whit Pines Camp - the summer White House home of President Calvin Coolidge; Paul Smiths College - the 4 year culinary and forestry school.
Within a 10-25 Minute Drive from your Hand-crafted Lodging
Within a 10-25 minute drive is Lake Placid and the Olympic venues, historic Saranac Lake voted in 2006 as (description), Tupper Lake - the cross-roads of the Adirondacks and home of the Natural History Museum that opened in July 2006 and simply countless cultural, historical, recreational or points of solitude that is the most diverse experience you will find in the Adirondacks. Hohmeyer's Lake Clear Lodge is in the epicenter of these natural, historical, cultural, recreational and sporting activities.
The Adirondack Park
The Adirondack Park boasts over 3,000 lakes, 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, and a wide variety of habitats, including globally unique wetland types and old growth forests. The heart of the Adirondack Park is the Forest Preserve, which was created by state legislature in 1885. Approximately half of the land is owned by the state of New York and is designated "forever wild" while the other half is private but subject to land use classifications governed by the Adirondack Park Agency that was created in 1973. The Adirondack Park is unique in its intricate mixture of public and private lands and it is often viewed as a great economic and environmental experiment.
The 6 million-acre Adirondack Park includes the entire western shore of Lake Champlain. The region is best known for its mountains (including the highest peaks in New York) and lakes (more shoreline than Vermont and New Hampshire combined).
 Within the "Blue Line," as the park boundary is called, are more than 2,000 miles of hiking trails, hundreds of miles of canoe routes and 42 peaks over 4,000 feet in height entice travelers from all over the world. During the winter, visitors enjoy Alpine and Nordic skiing, snowmobiling, skating, dog sledding and just simply relaxing. You can also hike, canoe, boat, fish, swim, ride bikes, horses, camp and more.
The Adirondacks are home to white tailed deer, common loons, mergansers, bald eagles, beavers and a wide array of fish such as brook and lake trout, land-locked salmon and more.
The Adirondacks are also a Birding heaven. The Great Adirondack Birding Celebration is held here annually in June and has ongoing birding events throughout the year. These activities include birding trips, lectures, workshops and the popular Teddy Roosevelt Birding Challenge. Some of the boreal species that birders will seek include the black-backed woodpecker, three-toed woodpecker, boreal chickadee, spruce grouse, Bicknell's thrush and a variety of migrating warblers. We are fortunate to have an Eagle right at our shores of our property.
Adirondack forests are comprised of hardwoods and softwoods, including maple, black cherry, beech, balsam fir, hemlock, Scotch and red pine and spruces of several varieties. Woodland wildflowers bloom in the spring, while many waterways are graced with rare flora and fauna throughout the summer.
The Adirondacks are part of the Canadian Shield. As such our mountains are relatively young mountains born as a result of glacier uplift. It is believed that there is a geologic movement beneath the Adirondacks that is causing continuing uplift. The mountains continue to grow at the rate of 1.5 millimeters annually.
While the mountains themselves are young, the rock themselves is among the oldest of the various types found on earth.
The Adirondack Alps in the St. Regis Wilderness Region:
The Undiscovered Experience
 However, what we believe sets the Adirondack Park apart is not only its unparalleled beauty but also its unique and extremely diverse human history. The Adirondacks were not only brazened by typical trappers and hunters in the early days but also by intellects, painters and composers who immersed themselves in the Adirondacks to both be rejuvenated, stimulated and in the case of tuberculosis, cured by the mountain lake way of life. The painter William James Stillman created a philosophers camp, Robert Lewis Stevenson wrote here, Einstein stayed in Lake Clear and this is just the tip of the intellectual iceberg. James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes and the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok were others who were inspired by the Saranac-St.Regis wilderness are which surrounds our Lodge estate. We believe our mountains called to these people to become part of a natural-human eco-system that became the Adirondacks. If you stop for a moment within the stillness of the reflective mirrored water or the timelessness of a back country trail you can feel and sense them as surely as you can sense the gently swaying pine trees and the cool crispness of clear mountain water running over your hands. With much the same thought that Chef Cathy Hohmeyer blends her 21st century holistic and naturally spiced ingredients with timeless old and new world family traditions to make our unique Adirondack Alps culinary blend, so too have the writers and philosophers added their scent to the aromas of what you feel and sense as you immerse yourself in our" Great Woods" and what we try to have you experience at our Lodge.
For more information, e-mail The Lodge, stop by, or call (877)6 ADK ALPS for our family flyer and packages. Fill in our mailing list and win a chance at Two Nights Free? Click Here!!
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