Eclipse watchers flocked to New York’s Adirondacks Monday, cheering wildly when the moon briefly blocked out the late-afternoon sun, causing temperatures to plunge.
Clear skies, with a mix of small clouds, provided a full-on view of the rare celestial event for those below who gazed upward through eclipse glasses as the moon steadily crept into the sun’s path before total darkness.
“The light was really strikingly different,” said Raymond Schwartz of Manhattan, who watched from a bridge over a small lake at The Wild Center, a 115-acre natural history museum and science center in Tupper Lake.
“It’s white. It has a very different quality to it that you don’t ordinarily see,” he added. “You’re losing some of the spectrum I think. It was really neat. It’s not something I’m used to.”
Schwartz and his wife, Donna Tapper, stayed the night before in nearby Long Lake, joining thousands of others who crowded hotels and rentals, where prices were double and triple the typical going rate.
The Wild Center set a single-day attendance record, as 4,500 visitors, some from as far as South Africa, came for a chance to view the eclipse in the path of totality.
Downtown Tupper Lake was jammed for days. Another 2,000 came through The Wild Center for Sunday’s eclipse activities.
And for hours afterward, traffic on local roads slowed to a crawl. It continued down I-87 and the New York State Thruway, where rest stops were so crowded many just kept driving.
Mapping the moon
Next door to The Wild Center, buses filled with schoolkids made their way to the L.P. Quinn Elementary School where the Adirondack Sky Center and Observatory had several exhibits.
Some, like Pat Heder of Highland Mills, came for the astronomy.
He staked out a spot on the school’s lawn while men and women in NASA space suits passed by.
An engineer by trade, he studies astronomy in his spare time.
“I’m a science-y guy,” he said. “I research stuff and then I do experiments."
Heder fashioned a pinhole projector out of a cardboard box to capture images of the sun during the period of partial eclipse phase. “Little dots correspond to the mountains on the moon,” he explained. “That’s a really interesting phenomenon to catch. It’s right before totality.”
He brought along a gauge to track the change in ground temperature once the sun was blocked.
Others came to see what they could see.
Friends road trip
Rhonda Griffin took Valerie Temple up on her invitation to hop on a tour bus from Albany to see the eclipse. They were joined by Regina DiLella.
"Valerie invited me for a very special birthday today because of the eclipse," Griffin said.
"Oh my goodness I didn't know that," DiLella said. "Now, we've got some celebrating to do."
They'd staked out a prime viewing spot before heading off to take in the center's many eclipse-related exhibits.
Griffin was sporting a floral track suit of bright blues, green and yellows for her 63 rd birthday.
"I've got a very loud suit on so don't leave me behind," she joked.
The day: Solar eclipse journal: The day the sun went away
New Jersey music teacher Eric Sturr, who writes under the name “Whatever Penny,” created a cosmic composition called “Totality” to serve as a backdrop for visitors as they walked through nearby woods.
He used synthesizers, mixed with the electric violin and the electric cello, to create an eerie, cosmic sound.
“I wanted it to sound natural and unnatural at the same time,” he said.
Sturr wrote it over the summer during a family vacation in a cabin in the Adirondacks.
“That was my inspiration,” he said. “I took a bunch of synthesizers. The hard part was finding the quiet in the mornings with my kids running around.”
Darkness, then cold
Around 3:24 p.m. as total darkness arrived, visitors hooted and hollered.
“The lights are out,” a young girl shouted.
Griffin and her friends looked upward.
That's Venue and that's Jupiter, someone said.
“This is beautiful,” Griffin said. “It’s amazing. We took good pictures. I hear firecrackers.”
Tom Zambito writes about growth, energy and transportation for the USA Today Network-New York. Reach him at Tzambito@lohud.com.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Record crowds swarm NY's Adirondacks to watch total eclipse from the mountains
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