The Eastern forests encompass 51 million acres of timberlands, including the Adirondack Park, which at 6 million-plus acres is the largest protected area in the lower 48 states. This wealth of land abuts the most populous region of the U.S. – exactly why it is the birthplace and the beating heart of the American conservation movement, a movement born from the catastrophic abuses of the not-so-distant past. This is the landscape that produced Theodore Roosevelt (who was climbing Mount Marcy ...

BY LUKE FRONTCZAK   The morning had been perfect – clear skies with a long narrow blanket of fog covering the valley floor below my hillside perch, which turned pink as the sun came up. Five seconds before beginning the trek back to camp, a little motion caught my eye as I put on my backpack. Pulling up my binos, antlers filled my vision. My butt involuntarily fell to the ground, and I felt my heart shift from fifth gear into second. After five years of hunting Washington state, this was the ...