Writer and wilderness adventurer Erik Schlimmer has produced two new Adirondack history books. The heftier one, 510-page Wicked Awesome Adirondack Chronology: 1524 to 2024 (Beechwood Books, 2024), is composed of nearly 4,000 individual entries that span those five centuries. The chronological list includes Adirondack events of consequence from first ascents to fastest known times, logging to landslides, hermits to hemlocks, avalanches to airplane crashes.
The other title, Cranberry Lake Fifty Place Names: The Tiny Toponym Tome (Beechwood Books, 2024), is a small format ninety pages. In this book Schlimmer writes about the 35 named features the Cranberry Lake 50 hiking trail meets on its circumnavigation of its aquatic centerpiece.
“I love esoteric history, forgotten history,” said the author who resides in Colorado but grew up in the Adirondacks where he worked as a backcountry ranger. “While writing Wicked Awesome Adirondack Chronology I uncovered hundreds of events few are aware of, though these events made the Adirondack Park what it is today. While writing Cranberry Lake Fifty Place Names I discovered the forgotten stories that revealed why features are named so.”
The Bookstore Plus co-owner Marc Galvin wrote in the foreword to Wicked Awesome Adirondack Chronology that this book shares Schlimmer’s “passion for exploring wild land and chronicling the history of these far-flung places.”
Towns of Clifton and Fine historian Mark Fridén contributed the Cranberry Lake Fifty Place Names foreword, writing “Even if you do not undertake a circumambulation of the Cranberry Lake Fifty yourself, you will enjoy reading about the various places this trail takes hikers to.”
Wicked Awesome Adirondack Chronology retails for $24, Cranberry Lake Fifty Place Names retails for $16, and both are available through ErikSchlimmer.com and select Northeast retailers.
See more new books HERE.
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