Bald (Rondaxe) Mountain
Fire Tower Restoration Project
Old Forge, NY

Notes from 2022-2023

Our FoBM volunteers continue to do our best to maintain the tower & we've had several work days up on the summit this past two years. Painting out graffiti in the cab is an annual activity. Sadly, a few bad apples also carry in markers or paint and deface some of the rocks on the trail/summit. Fallen timber thankfully is cleared by our DEC partners. 

Several folks out of the thousands of visitors sometimes require EMS/Rescue services from our local fire departments and DEC rangers. Please note the photos below - in the spring of 2022, the Jr. Firefighters from the Old Forge Fire Department participated on a rescue drill along the trail. They were assisted by several forest rangers. We are very proud of these young volunteers and several have been there to assisted with actual rescues. 

Once again, Ron Walker led a group of volunteers up to the summit to light up the tower on September 3, 2022. In addition to leading another group up in September 2023, Ron has been instrumental in helping to clean off graffiti - this year he tackled the markings on our Kiosk at the trail head parking lot. Amazing work and much appreciated Ron. Check out the before (lf) and after (rt) photos below.

Fred's a volunteer for the Stillwater Fire Tower though he also stopped up on Bald in 2022 to paint out some graffiti. This past year, he was instrumental in fabricating a new safety door into the cab that he installed in July. Several years ago, Paul Sheidelman replaced our first map table but our harsh winter weather and sadly, graffiti marks made it unreadable. With a copy from Larry Coon of our original map, designed by Ann McBride, Fred created a new map table which he installed in late summer with the help of summit steward and volunteer Jacob Bolton. Carol and Linda are frequent hikers and always carry a trash bag to collect garbage along the trail and summit. Thank you all for all your well appreciated volunteer work.

Nearly 20 years ago, FoBM installed new stairs (and platforms) on the tower (photo left).  Thousands of visitors have left their mark on those well-worn steps and some were missing bolts as well (photo right). This was a monumental task that the FoBM thought sure would have to wait until 2024. But, wow, our DEC partners came through for us in a tremendous way to get the job done in November 2023. You can imagine how inconvenient it would have been to do this project during the peak summer and fall season. A huge thanks to the DEC crew from Boonville for all their much appreciated work.