Adirondack Experience (ADKX) will open on May 24 for the 2024 season, inspiring visitors to learn and connect with all-things Adirondack, past and present. In addition to its expansive list of ongoing daily offerings, several new works of art – including, “Cosmic Portal,” a complex sculptural piece that measures 9’ by 6’ – will be on display in Artists & Inspiration in the Wild, which debuted in July 2023.
This year also marks the 100th anniversary of the completion of the Northville-Placid Trail (NPT), a 138-mile route that transverses Adirondack Park. To honor this milestone, the museum will launch its newest special exhibition, “Trail Makers: 100 Years of the Northville-Placid Trail” and offer daily programming and opportunities to connect hikers, history buffs, and those who simply treasure the region to come together to mark this anniversary in a personal way.
ADKX will also introduce Tuesday Trail Talks & Tours, a new monthly series to learn about the people who hike, maintain, and work to preserve the Northville-Placid Trail today.
In addition to new and refreshed exhibits, the museum’s most popular festivals, such as Celebrate Akwesasne, Adirondack Artisan Festival, Mushroom Mania, the Rustic Fair, Xperience for All, and FallFest will also return this year.
Exhibit Highlights
- The largest permanent exhibition devoted to Adirondack art in the world, Artists & Inspiration in the Wild opened last year. Several new pieces by renowned and groundbreaking artists have been recently installed. The interactive exhibit features more than 250 works across four main galleries that illustrate how the natural features of the Adirondacks – light, forests, water, and mountains – have sparked the creative visions of diverse painters, sculptors, and expert artisans. After exploring the main galleries, visitors end their journey in the ADKX Art Lab, a makerspace created in collaboration with Adirondack artist Barney Bellinger.
- Visitors to Trail Makers: 100 Years of the Northville-Placid will learn about the history of the trail, the team who built it, particularly Edwin Noyes and Howard Rowe, the people along the trail’s path (French Louis, Noah John Rondeau, the Plumley family, among others) and the trail as it is used today. The exhibition features works from the museum’s art, photo, guidebook and map collections, and connects directly to objects on view permanently, especially stories about hiking and trails as well as the beloved Adirondack figure Rondeau. The exhibition will close at the end of the 2025 season.
- ADKX encourages visitors to start their journey on campus with Life in the Adirondacks, a 19,000-square-foot immersive exhibition that introduces visitors to the Adirondack Park with videos, historical objects, and artifacts.
- Wood and Waters invites visitors to learn the history of outdoor recreation in the Adirondacks. Historic and present-day photographs provide a lively view of Adirondack recreation with a focus on people in a natural setting.
- Boats and Boating, which showcases the importance of boats to the region and features more than 50 vintage boats to view and explore.
New Workshops and Artist- in-Residence Programs
A full schedule of events and roster of participating artists will be available on the ADKX website in the coming weeks. Available online here.
- Our annual season of workshops includes a variety of options. ADKX has partnered with the Adirondack Center for Writing to offer a Cut-Up Poetry Collage Workshop, where text from discarded books, magazines, and newspapers is physically cut up and rearranged to create a poem. Other available workshops include a chance to try one’s hands at a traditional Adirondack craft, such as paddle-making (spend the day shaping a traditional beavertail canoe paddle), packbasket making, and more.
- The Indigenous Artist-in-Residence program will welcome 11 Akwesasne Mohawk artists to demonstrate their artistry and unique craft. Artists will be located in the Life in the Adirondacks exhibition on select dates from June to September.
- Inspired by the Adirondacks Artist-in-Residence program, nine regional artists will be near Artists & Inspiration in the Wild throughout July and August to demonstrate their artistic processes.
Outdoors Highlights
- Visitors are able to borrow a range of boats at the ADKX Boathouse, including a rotating collection of vintage canoes, traditional guideboats, and rowboats, to enjoy upon Minnow Pond, a roughly 90-acre body of water above Blue Mountain Lake.
- Minnow Pond Trail is an easy ¾-mile walk, suitable for the whole family to discover Minnow Pond, known as a “gem in the wilderness.”
- Blue View Trail offers a short, vigorous route for more experienced hikers. From the higher vantage point, the views of Blue Mountain Lake are even more breathtaking. The Blue View Trail can be accessed as a spur off the Minnow Pond Trail.
ADKX will be open every day, from 10:00 am until 5 pm, through October 14, 2024. For additional information and updates, visit www.theadkx.org.
