ADIRONDACKS — Travelers on the most northern stretches of the Adirondack Northway are likely finding cell phone service improved this summer.

Cellular transmission equipment has been installed on smokestacks, water towers, ski jumps and fire towers as well as on more traditional cell towers from the Lake George region to the Canadian border.

According to Adirondack Park Agency spokesman Keith P. McKeever, cellular phone companies this year have received approval for six new transmitter sites and six more are nearing approval.

The APA regulates the placement of towers and other equipment within the park and has battled with companies for years when proposed locations for equipment were deemed to be too visible.

John Sheehan of the Adirondack Council, a park watchdog group, said an understanding reached by the state and cell phone companies appears to be benefitting everyone.

“We’re very pleased with the way this is going,” Sheehan said Thursday. “Companies seem to be seeing the wisdom of following the park agency’s tower policies.”

The policies encourage use of existing structures for the installation of equipment rather than the construction of tall towers in open areas.

“Most [cell phone] customers live in the communities in the park and it makes sense to put the equipment there to serve them,” Sheehan said.

He said some of the best examples of improvements in the communications systems are a chimney on the hotel at the Sagamore Resort in Bolton Landing on Lake George and a bell tower in the Town Hall in Elizabethtown.

“If you look at the Sagamore [Hotel] you will see two chimneys, but one of those chimneys is not a smokestack at all,” he said. “And, in Elizabethtown, where we have our headquarters, our staff didn’t even know the equipment had been installed in the bell tower until they noticed their cell phone service had improved.”

He said cell phone companies are getting better at “stealth concealment” through painting equipment the same color as water towers so they blend with the structure as they are attached.

“Early attempts to make cell towers look like pine trees failed because the towers looked like a toilet brush shoved into the ground by its handle,” he said.

The Adirondack Council was critical of a 114-foot cell tower approved by the APA in 2004 in Pilot Knob, near Lake George, and dubbed “Frankenpine” by critics.

Earlier this month, the APA approved a permit for Verizon to construct a 100-foot tower on Route 9 in the Essex County town of Lewis that is expected to cover three miles to the north and south near Exit 32.

The Lewis tower, which will be built by Independent Towers LLC, can accommodate four cell carriers and AT&T has already agreed to use the tower.

Sheehan said cooperation between phone companies is another change in attitude.

“Before, it seemed the companies were trying to beat the competition in serving communities, now they see they need to share,” Sheehan said.

Next month, according to McKeever, the agency will decide on another Verizon application for a permit in Chesterfield, near Keeseville, at Exit 34.