A September sunrise greets Mount Colden's summit.

Lump together Glacier, Olympic, Yellowstone, and Grand Canyon National Parks, and Adirondack Park would still be bigger. A patchwork of property, the park is 57 percent privately owned. New York state, which controls the rest, protects it with an unusual constitutional provision stipulating that this land remain forever wild.”

(Text adapted from "Adirondack High," June 1998, National Geographic magazine)