It may come as a surprise that the Adirondack Park, six million acres of mountainous land in upstate New York, was a creation of national insecurity. In the middle of the nineteenth century, journalists, critics, and clergy warned that American men were growing soft—“womanly” even. The germ? What one politician called the “enervating, debasing pleasures of the cities.” What was needed were places where men—and even women—could build and flex their muscles, fish and tramp and hunt, and regain the stamina and courage of their forebears who had won the Revolutionary War. In New York, powerful downstaters proposed the solution of preserving the Adirondack wilderness. After the state legislature fussed for several decades, in 1892 the poetically named then Governor Roswell Flower officially created the park. Whether it succeeded in restoring masculine vigor is uncertain; what is sure is that these serene, forested lands studded with nearly 3,000 lakes and ponds have, over the years, restored equilibrium to the enervated. But the park is now under serious threat: Acid rain, from smokestacks and automobile emissions, is destroying its ancient ecosystem by poisoning its lakes with nitrogen, which suffocates fish and aquatic plants.

I’m driving part of the solution. The Honda Insight, a marvel of design and engineering, is the first of a breed of car that combines a gasoline engine and an electric motor. This marriage produces mind-boggling fuel efficiency—64 miles per gallon on average—and an 80 percent reduction in emissions, compared with the typical car. Better still, it never needs recharging and drives like any other automobile.

Day One—100 miles: Lake Placid to Essex and back

I’m “inside the Blue Line,” as the Adirondack Park is distinctively designated on my map, in the town of Lake Placid—though there’s certainly nothing placid about it. Traffic on the main street cum shopping mall is bumper to bumper, and foreign flags from the two Winter Olympic Games held here still flap on every lamppost. I’ve chosen the criminally expensive, immensely comfortable, and centrally located Lake Placid Lodge as my base camp, but even so, it’s a relief to get out of town and into the open air. Until 1959, when New Yorkers voted to turn 300 protected acres over to the Northway (a stretch of I-87 running from Albany to the Canadian border), Route 9 was the only road winding through the central Adirondacks. With the opening of the Northway, development along this once-bustling route slowed to a virtual standstill. A string of roadside hotels, The Villa, the Grand Prix, and the Blue Spruce—built when Ozzie and Harriett were on TV and Ike was in the White House—still sit on perfectly manicured lawns, with 1960s-vintage patio chairs that look like plastic laundry baskets and retro plastic umbrellas set up around their swimming pools. The Blue Spruce is a neon-drizzled confection so perfectly preserved that the only thing missing are tail fins in the parking lot. Tubes of red and blue light swirl along its eaves, and its seven-foot, Christmas tree–shaped sign has beckoned tourists with the promise of color TV for 50 years. “We had a man stop by this summer whose father made that sign,” says owner Carol Moore, showing me one of the motel’s knotty pine–paneled rooms in her fuzzy pink slippers. “Birds fly into the neon all the time, and it costs a lot to repair, but we keep it up as best we can.” Most of Moore’s guests are bikers and retirees; occasionally a family stays for a night. “The bikers are definitely the nicest,” she says. “They leave their rooms so clean you’d never know they were here. Families with kids are another story.” I turn off Route 9N onto 22 and, after stopping to raft through the sheer, river-cut cliffs at Ausable Chasm, find myself on a long, slow uphill grade, which the Insight takes in stride. Soon the two-lane is bordered by dense forest on either side. As I approach the tiny village of Essex, I see deep blue, whitecap-whipped Lake Champlain come into view, with the Green Mountains of Vermont rising on its far shore. The town looks just as it must have 125 years ago. Its peerless collection of pre–Civil War buildings has earned it a place on the National Register of Historic Places, but few are open to the public. An architect friend who summered here as a boy had told me, “Whatever you do, you must see the restoration work they’re doing at Greystone.” So I head down an eerily deserted Main Street to that handsome Greek Revival mansion, built of cut limestone in 1853. I wait with three other tourgoers in the entry hall for a few minutes, admiring the towering gilt pier glasses in the parlor and the view of the lake through the bay windows. Our guide then appears, as if out of thin air, and introduces himself. David leads us into the darkly paneled library, with its massive mahogany bookcases, and then through the rest of the house, pointing out the Empire furnishings, antique textiles, and porcelain throughout. Upstairs, he opens a bedroom door to show us . . . a man putting on his pants? Red-faced, David explains that Greystone is a living museum; he and his partner are living there as they continue the painstaking restoration project that they began six years ago. As we end our tour, he remarks, “It’s after five o’clock. Would you care to stay for drinks?” The ropes come down, the museum turns into a home, and an impromptu cocktail party is held amid the mansion’s finery. We all stay, taking our drinks on our feet in the parlor.

Day Two—165 miles: Lake Placid to Raquette Lake and back

The day is crisp under a robin’s egg sky, and I’m heading south on Route 30, traveling deeper into the park, where the white pines, red spruce, and yellow birch grow in thick stands, and where the mountains loom high enough to block out the morning sun. Here, the only sign of man is the occasional cluster of tourist cabins and the massive RV I’m stuck behind—but not for long. The Insight’s electric auxiliary motor kicking into full assist, I pass the hulking holidaymobile handily, breezing by worry-free. The car holds tight to the road, a narrow cut through the forest, nothing but hazy peaks visible in the distance. At the hamlet of Long Lake, I find the Adirondacks of my imagination. Surrounded by mountain walls, kayakers paddle through the light chop of the lake, two floatplanes rock gently at the pier, and the rickety old Adirondack Hotel presides over all, as it has for 100 years, since city folk started coming up this way. But life for the natives hasn’t always been so postcard perfect. At the Adirondack Museum, seven miles south in Blue Mountain Lake, I learn that the loggers who came here to earn their living battled unforgiving elements, bedbugs, and body lice (the last two on display). Loss of limb from accidents was common, and many a young logger was shipped back to his family in a box made of the same pine he had come to clear. Another display explains the rarely fatal spruce fever, the primary symptoms of which were an insatiable thirst for booze and the comforts of the whores in nearby Utica. The late-nineteenth-century clergy considered it a serious enough malady to ship in Good Books by the thousands, and even intrepid “wood missionaries.” I turn west on Route 28 to get to Raquette Lake and Sagamore, the Great Camp built in 1895 by William West Durant for $250,000 and sold to the Vanderbilts for $165,000. The Adirondack life portrayed at this museum could not be more different from the life of the loggers. Our tour guide explains that a staff of 40 mostly Irish immigrants tended to the needs of Alfred G. Vanderbilt and his small family. Industrialists like the Vanderbilts and J. P. Morgan built these self-sufficient fiefdoms to escape the filth of New York City for a month or two each summer and, according to popular thought, to get closer to God. Not one to sacrifice the conveniences of the city, however, Vanderbilt installed a power plant on the property and a sewer system that’s still in use today. The Great Camps were designed to bring the majesty of God’s Great Outdoors indoors through the liberal use of elements such as knotty spruce paneling, bentwood furniture, and ornamental twig work. The final touch was the mounting of as many deer, moose, and bison heads as a wall could hold—a rather macabre menagerie of beasts that stare at you glassy-eyed, no matter which way you turn. City slickers loved this egregious interpretation of nature, but our guide points out that the locals found it absurd and resented the ostentation.

Day Three—164 miles: Lake Placid to Ticonderoga and back

Nineteenth-century wisdom held that the Adirondack air could cure everything from tuberculosis to effeminacy. As I head east on Route 73 past Keene, I pull over to hike around a mountain lake. The forested slopes are turning burnt orange and gold, shot through with stark white veins of birch. No cars pass, the lake is still, and the only sound is of the occasional trout splashing. Suddenly the idea of this place having the power to cure whatever ails you seems awfully enlightened. Back on I-87, I decide to see what this sci-fi mobile’s really made of. We’re up to 95 miles an hour before fear of the highway patrol reins me in. Good thing, too, because two miles later, on my way back down to 70, I pass a trooper. He leaves me alone, but I see him do a double take at the sight of this red, futuristic teardrop blazing by. I stop for a bite in Westport, a little village set on a green where Norman Rockwell would feel right at home. At McQueen’s Food & Fountain, a white-bearded local I meet over lunch at the soda counter tells me that the clear Adirondack sky is perfect for watching “space junk” fly by. “Asteroids are the biggest threat to humanity,” he warns, shaking a finger at me. “It’s not anymore a question of if, but when!” Picking up my pace, I head south along the foothills of the Adirondacks, a landscape of orchards and wheat fields marked with weather-beaten barns. The stretch of Route 9N between Westport and Port Henry is a series of gentle crests and dips hugging Lake Champlain. Hand-painted wooden shingles advertise fruit and worms (a dollar a dozen) for sale. On every downgrade, the car’s display panel glows, indicating that its battery is charging, ready to give me a boost on the next climb. The land within the Blue Line will be all the greener for it.

Behind the Wheel

It’s hard to turn heads in New York City, where cool indifference is a badge of honor. But as I drove the Honda Insight up Broadway, the car elicited at every stoplight wide-eyed stares and shouts of “Hey, buddy, what’s that?” In the Adirondacks, it literally drew crowds. Sure, the Insight’s tapered, teardrop shape and skirted rear wheel wells make it look as much like a latter-day spacecraft as a car, but its real genius lies under the hood. The Insight is the first gasoline-electric hybrid car ever sold in the United States, and its astounding fuel efficiency and ultra-low emissions are largely the result of its lightweight, one-liter, three-cylinder gasoline engine. True, some kitchen blenders may have more power, but the Insight gets a big boost from an electric motor fueled by a 144-volt nickel-hydride battery hidden behind the car’s two seats. The gasoline engine and electric motor work in tandem to give the car 73 horsepower and enough acceleration to launch from a stoplight at surprising speed. Unlike fully electric cars, the Insight never runs on battery power alone and so never needs recharging. Its battery pack stores juice that’s generated every time you brake or coast, putting otherwise wasted momentum to good use. To further limit gasoline consumption, the car shuts off when stopped and in neutral, seamlessly starting up again when the clutch is engaged. The downside of all this technological wizardry is that the battery takes up space where a lot of drivers would prefer a back seat. The Insight has only two seats; its storage space can’t accommodate much more than a couple of large duffel bags. Another minus: The car is available with a manual transmission only. I drove the Insight for 1,000 miles, many of them exceeding speeds of 80 miles per hour. Even so, I averaged 58 miles to the gallon and had to stop only twice to fill the tank. Law-abiding motorists would surely get higher mileage, closer to the car’s record-breaking EPA rating of 61 miles per gallon for city driving and 70 miles per gallon for highway. The car handles admirably, although it won’t win any races—especially on steep uphill grades, which it attacks sluggishly, like any other low-power, energy-saving model. In the end, the Insight’s fuel efficiency and environmentally friendly emissions make it a winner—and, at $21,000, a bargain. For anyone with both a conscience and a need to be noticed, it’s a sweet deal.

Pit Stops

Secluded Lake Placid Lodge pulls off the unlikely pairing of high luxury and backwoods rusticity in a style true to the Great Camp ideal. Feather beds, overstuffed furniture, fine rugs, and showers big enough for three make the cabins obscenely cozy, and the working fireplaces take even the most biting chill out of the night air. Dinner in the lodge dining room approaches gustatory greatness, although the service is a little stiff (518-523-2700; lakeplacidlodge.com; doubles, $300–$800). Set on the water at the very edge of Lake Placid, the Mirror Lake Inn is less rustic, more clubby and traditional, and has the warmest and most attentive service I’ve encountered anywhere. Dinner was sublime (tip: Seconds are on the house), and the new spa provides a perfect antidote to the unavoidable overindulgence (518-523-2544; mirrorlakeinn.com; doubles, $140–$475). A vintage roadside motel in Keeseville, the Blue Spruce is just south of the Ausable Chasm and ten minutes from the ferry across Lake Champlain to Burlington, Vermont. Its clean, knotty pine–paneled rooms are basic and a little musty, but the prices are rock bottom, and the trip back in time is complimentary (518-834-7155; doubles, $50). The Wawbeek, on Upper Saranac Lake, offers comfortable rooms and cabins in a remote, wooded setting high above the water. Dinner here is a must. "Do you know what they do to those ducks!" my waitress scolded when I ordered the foie gras with buckwheat pancakes—but its splendid flavor was well worth the shame I had to endure (800-953-2656; wawbeek.com; doubles, $125–$250).