Adirondacks

Adirondack Mountains
The Adirondack Mountains from the top of Whiteface Mountain
Highest point
Peak	Mount Marcy
Elevation	5,344 ft (1,629 m)
Coordinates	44°06′45″N 73°55′26″W / 44.11250°N 73.92389°W / 44.11250; -73.92389Coordinates: 44°06′45″N 73°55′26″W / 44.11250°N 73.92389°W / 44.11250; -73.92389
Geography
Map of the main mountainous regions of the northeastern United States. Strictly speaking, neither the Adirondacks nor the Catskills and Poconos are part of the Appalachian Mountains, having much different origins.
Country	United States
State	New York
Geology
Orogeny	Grenville Orogeny
Age of rock	Tonian

The Adirondack Mountains /ædᵻˈrɒndæk/ form a massif in the northeast of Upstate New York in the United States. Its boundaries correspond to the boundaries of Adirondack Park. The mountains form a roughly circular dome, about 160 miles (260 km) in diameter and about 1 mile (1,600 m) high. The current relief owes much to glaciation.

The earliest written use of the name, spelled Rontaks, was in 1724 by the French missionary Joseph-François Lafitau. He defined it as tree eaters. In the Mohawk language, Adirondack means porcupine, an animal that may eat bark. The Mohawks had no written language at the time so Europeans have used various phonetic spellings. An English map from 1761 labels it simply Deer Hunting Country and the mountains were named Adirondacks in 1837 by Ebenezer Emmons.

People first arrived in the area following the settlement of the Americas around 10,000 BC. The Algonquian peoples and the Mohawk nation used the Adirondacks for hunting and travel but did not settle. European colonisation of the area began with Samuel de Champlain visiting what is now Ticonderoga in 1609, and Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues visited the region in 1642.