The Wild Center, located in Tupper Lake, NY, at the core of the Adirondacks, spans 115 acres and offers visitors a variety of experiences. Highlights include a vast trail system, treetop adventures on Wild Walk, Forest Music, the art installation of Patrick Dougherty’s Stick Work and 54,000 square feet of indoor exhibit space with interactive Planet Adirondack and Climate Solutions. Watch the below video that uncovers new insights into the natural world of The Wild Center:
It’s all part of an outdoor and indoor experience on 81-acres that’s earned praise from around the world for how it lets visitors of all ages get closer to the natural world. There are trails, guided canoe trips on the river that runs by the Center’s campus, and a staff ready and willing to show you around, and answer questions about anything having to do with the wild world of the Adirondacks.
Wild Walk
Wild Walk adds another dimension to a Wild Center day, by taking visitors up a trail of bridges to the treetops of the Adirondack forest. The Wild Walk experience includes a four-story twig tree house and swinging bridges, a spider’s web where people can hang out, and chances to just sit and observe the forest below.
A Nest With A View
There’s an over-sized bald eagle’s nest at the highest point where visitors can perch and watch the life of the forest from a whole new point of view. Look up into a white pine, and with a little luck you’ll see the nests of bald eagles near Wild Walk.
Suspend Yourself
Hop into an oversized spider web—large enough to catch humans. And learn about spiders.
A Trail Across The Treetops
Visitors walk up a trail of bridges to the treetops of the Adirondack forest. Designed to transform the way we see into the natural world by offering up the perspective of the rest of nature.
The Snag
Wild Walk’s snag is a giant among the giants, big enough for a stairwell inside, and four stories tall.
Stick Work
Artist Patrick Dougherty has tapped into that nostalgia to create a larger-than-life sculpture that is inspired by childhood and the natural world of the Adirondacks this bent, weaved, snagged and flexed sustainably-sourced, local sapling created a an amusing immersive art piece.
The Museum
The Wild Center has a 54,000-square-foot indoor space. Designed by the firm that built Washington’s Air & Space Museum, The Wild Center is filled with hands-on experiences, live animals, including resident river otters, birds and reptiles, and exhibits that creatively explore the wild nature of the Adirondacks. A planet Adirondacks features an interactive Earth where you can see how our world really works.The Center also features a full museum store, a cafe with outdoor waterside seating in season, and daily special events.
Forest Music
An experience that combines nature, technology and art. Twenty-four speakers placed throughout the trail envelopes guests in music that blends with natural sounds of the forest. The Symphony of music made by nature and man. As you walk along this trail loop, let your senses lead the way.
The Clothesline
Food, Fiber, Air, and Soil, an installation by artist Brenda Baker, highlights the hard work done in our community by people who work in agriculture. The installation is made up of hundreds of pieces of used work attire donated by agricultural workers, which act as stand-ins for the unseen people whose labor produces the food we eat.
