ADK Heroes: Joan Lapham

As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Johns Brook Lodge, many of us are thinking about how the lodge allows visitors to disconnect from a technologically driven world and reconnect with the natural world around us. How appropriate it was, then, that Joan Lapham chose to mail us handwritten responses to the questions we might normally ask in an interview over a Zoom call.

Joan grew up just outside of the Adirondack Park in Glens Falls, New York, and connected with the wilderness at a young age. Her father was one of the first presidents of ADK’s Glens Falls Chapter. (In later years, this chapter became the Glens Falls-Saratoga Chapter, and Joan remains a member of it to this day.) In her letter, Joan recalls a hike she went on at the age of twelve, and the nearly vertical ladder she had to climb on her way to the summit.

“Was it Crane Mountain?” she wonders. (It may have been! The hike to the summit of Crane Mountain features two tall ladders, though this author wasn’t able to verify when they were installed. If you know when the ladders were installed, please write in!)

After moving away and living out of the area for most of the next thirty years, Joan returned to live in Greenwich, New York, and began hiking again. She got information on outings from the Glens Falls-Saratoga Chapter newsletter, and she participated in several excursions led by ADK’s trip leaders.

Joan specifically mentions the Women in Wilderness programs offered by ADK’s education and stewardship departments. These especially appealed to her after she realized her husband preferred spending time on the golf course.

She writes about paddling, canoe carrying, sleeping in tents, and cooking with water that her group had filtered from nearby lakes and mountains. Joan says, “[I was] enjoying the woods and lakes which are there waiting to be enjoyed.”

“The [Loj] at Heart Lake and the variety of cabins available to be rented are a genuine encouragement to be there,” Joan writes.

Joan now helps other Adirondack families enjoy the magnificence of Heart Lake and build generational connections to the Adirondack Park by supporting ADK’s Marie L. Haberl Three Seasons at Heart Lake School Outreach Program. In addition to offering journal writing and classroom sessions, the program brings fourth-grade students from across the North Country to Heart Lake for, as Joan puts it, “actual woodland experiences.”

“Many of the [students’] families have lived in the mountain towns for years. This program helps the children learn what the ‘mountains’ are all about, which will lead many of them to engage in activities and even possible future employment.”

Joan’s letter touches on themes similar to those discussed in our previous two “ADK Heroes” columns. Like Jen Kretser (Fall 2024), Joan sees importance in helping children develop a sense of place in the Adirondacks, while recognizing that Three Seasons at Heart Lake may be their first real wilderness experience. And like Craig Weatherup (Winter 2025), she sees how instilling that sense of place can inspire students to put down roots in the Adirondack Park, becoming permanent residents and the next generation of stewards needed to keep North Country communities vibrant for years to come.

ADK thanks Joan for her decades of involvement with the organization as a program participant, member, and donor; and this author would like to thank her, too, for being the first person to give him a practical application for his many years of cursive lessons.

This article was written by David Lynch, ADK’s Digital Marketing Coordinator, and published in the Spring 2025 issue of Adirondac magazine.