Lake Placid, New York - September 20th to 22nd, 2021
If you are traveling for long periods of time, you are bound to have good days and bad days. Sometimes it feels a lot like a roller coaster ride. The first two days in Lake Placid were fantastic. Then we came down to reality and the third day was rather frustrating.
On Monday, we drove from Grand Isle State Park in Vermont to the Lake Placid area in New York. To get there, we took the Cumberland Head - Grand Isle ferry from Gordon Landing, due west of Grand Isle State Park. The crossing is only 15 minutes. The toll is charged by the length of your vehicle and how many people are inside. It seems a little odd that they would charge per person, since you stay in your vehicle the whole time and don’t take up any more space. For the two of us in our van, which is about 22 feet long, including the bikes on the back, it was $20.95 for the one way trip. The ride was surprisingly smooth and the views of the lake were wonderful.
We stopped in Plattsburgh New York for groceries and a picnic lunch downtown in Trinity Park next to the City Hall and near the Clinton County buildings. Plattsburgh is the birthplace of astronaut Michael Phillip Anderson, who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. A new mural honoring Anderson was created in 2020 and a dedication ceremony was held on July 4, 2021. You can see the mural down the street from Trinity Park.
Since the weather was beautiful on Monday, we decided to head over to Lake Placid instead of checking into our campground in Wilmington. The drive to Lake Placid was beautiful. The trees are just starting to change to their fall colors.
Lake Placid is inside Adirondack Park. Adirondack Park was created by the state of New York in 1892. The park, which covers about one-fifth of the state, contains public as well as private land and 105 towns. Land use on public and private lands within the park is regulated by the Adirondack Park Agency. Encompassing the Adirondack Mountains, the park was established for the free use for people’s health and pleasure along with watershed protection.
The town of Lake Placid was rather chaotic. There is construction everywhere and we struggled finding a place to park. After driving completely around Mirror Lake, we finally found the one public parking lot which only had a couple of spots left. The lot is near the visitor center and the Winter Olympic Museum. The museum is undergoing renovations and was closed. A small exhibit from the museum was on display inside the visitor center. The person at the desk inside the visitor center recommended going to the Olympic Ski Jump Tower and drive up Whiteface Mountain, so that’s what we did.
The drive to the Olympic Ski Jump Tower was just a couple of miles heading south from town. The Olympic Ski Jumping Complex was also under construction. They were upgrading the jumping hills to meet the current competition specifications. For $11 per adult, a shuttle bus took us from the Intervales Lodge to the base of the 120 meter ski jump tower where we took an elevator to the top of the ski jump tower. There is a Skyride gondola which runs from the lodge to the base of the ski jump towers, but it was not running. We’re not sure if that was due to the construction or to the pandemic.
The views of the surrounding area from the top of the ski tower where spectacular. You can also see where the skiers go out onto the jump and look down the tracks of the jump. However, due to the steep slope, you cannot see the hill where the skiers land from the top.
From there, we headed over to the Whiteface Veterans’ Memorial Highway, which is a toll road up to the top of Whiteface mountain. The road gains over 2300 feet in five miles, almost to the summit. The road ends at a castle, restaurant, and gift shop. You can climb a short trail to reach the actual summit. There is an elevator embedded inside the mountain that goes from the parking lot to the summit, but it is not currently opened. Again, there was construction going on at the summit. Did everyone decide to start their renovations during the pandemic?
The trail from the castle to the summit is steep, rocky, and slippery. Sturdy handrails line most of the path on both sides for safety. Right Buddy (RB) thought her running shoes that she was wearing had good soles, but she did slip on some of the rocks. Fortunately she did not fall. She was not in any danger of falling over the edge, but landing on those jagged rock would have certainly resulted in an injury.
The views along the drive, from the castle, and the summit were stunning. We could make out Lake Champlain in one direction and the ski jump and bobsled run back near Lake Placid in the other direction. The 360 degree view from the summit stretched out for miles and miles in every direction. There were tree covered mountains as far as we could see in every direction.
We checked into the North Pole Campground in Wilmington, not far from the Whiteface Veterans’ Memorial Highway. Unbelievably, we did not stop for ice cream at all on Monday, so RB baked up a batch of apple brownies in the Omnia Oven instead. On the way back from the restroom after dark, we saw two beady red eyes staring at us from a distance. Our flashlight was not bright enough to light the creature up so we could tell what it was. We believe it was an opossum.
We’re staying in a private campground called North Pole Campground, but we are in the section called the 100 Acres Woods across the road from the main campground. This section is more like a state park campground. The large sites are nicely spaced. Our site does not have hook ups and it is up a small incline. Even though there are a couple of other sites on the hill with us, they are empty. So it is like we have our own private place. You can hear the muffled sounds of the nearby highway, but there is no traffic at night.
Tuesday, we hike Cascade Mountain. There is not a lot of parking at the trailhead, but there are several pull out parking areas alongside state route 73 in both directions from the trailhead. Being 10 am on a weekday morning, we were able to get a spot in the first pull out just west of the trailhead.
The trail is less than five miles long, round trip, to the summit and back, but it is a steep and steady climb. Our stats for the day were 4.9 miles with an elevation gain of 1923 feet in four hours and fifty minutes. This was hike #39 of our 52 Hike Challenge. Yes, that’s a pace of around one mile an hour. Not only was the trail steep, it was rough and gave our legs, knees and ankles a good workout.
The trail is not marked in the traditional sense. There are no blazes or signs along most of the trail. But it is easy to follow the trail of rocks and boulders through the woods. Near the summit, when you leave the trees, the trail is marked with blazes painted on the solid rock along with rock cairns marking the route to the summit.
There is only about one spot before leaving the trees where there is any kind of view. That is just fine because you need to keep your eyes on your feet and the trail to decide where to take your next step. The views from the summit make up for the lack of views along the way. It was simply stunning. We think we like the views from Cascade Mountain better than Whiteface Mountain and the top of the ski jump from the day before. And we didn’t have to pay any money to see it. However, the price we paid was our time and our sore muscles. It’s been a while since we’ve gone on a challenging hike and it felt good.
On the way back to the campground, we stopped at the old-fashioned A&W Root Beer stand in Wilmington. We treated ourselves to root beer floats. Lett Buddy (LB) had a large, RB opted for the medium. The medium came out in a frosted glass mug while the large was in a paper cup. RB was happy with her choice.
Wednesday was supposed to be a relaxing day, but we felt frustrated most of the day. We needed to do lots of laundry, but the laundry at the campground (at least on our side of the road) only had two washers and two dryers. So we drove into Lake Placid to a laundromat to get the laundry done faster and have some time to walk around Lake Placid. Many of the machines at the laundromat were out of order, but there were enough empty, working ones to get our four loads in, which included towels and sheets. The price of the loads were twice the price of the campground. Oh well, that’s the price you pay for saving time.
It was past lunch time by the time we finished laundry. Searching in Google Maps, we couldn’t find a park nearby, so we ate our lunch in the van in the laundromat parking lot. Afterwards, we went into the Hannaford Supermarket to pick up a couple of items and use their restrooms. We walked the perimeter of the store and could not find the restrooms. As we were at the cash registers, RB spotted the restroom sign off the middle of the produce section. We didn’t realize we cut down the aisle just before the produce section when we were walking the perimeter.
Then we headed over to the UPS Store. RB needed to have a document notarized. The person at the counter informed her that she needed to make an appointment online. The notary only comes in at noon and at 4:30 pm. When she went online, the 4:30 pm slot was already taken so she made an appointment for noon on Thursday. She also called Fidelity in Albany, because she also needed a medallion signature on another document. The automated phone system said that office does not have a notary service and then placed her on hold. Not having the patience to sit there on hold for long, she decided to hang up and try again later.
From there we went to the hardware store. The latch on the sink cabinet door had broken again, so we needed a replacement. The store did not have the type of latch that LB wanted, so he settled for the style of latch we used in previous seasons.
Finally we headed to the parking lot downtown so we could walk around. There is construction everywhere. The loud machinery was almost deafening as we walked down Main Street. Main Street is alongside the west shore of Mirror Lake. The lake called Lake Placid is actually north of town. The buildings block the view of the lake, except at Mid’s Park at a break between the buildings. The park has a band shell and a grassy area with Adirondack chairs where you can sit at look out over Mirror Lake. While we sat there watching a couple of people paddling in their kayaks and SUP boards, a person in a dry suit started swimming across the lake. Perhaps he was doing some long distance training. He looked like a pretty good swimmer.
It was time for ice cream, but we struggled to find a place that was open that served ice cream. More than half the shops were closed. Even Ben & Jerry’s was closed on Wednesdays and, of course, it was Wednesday. So we decided to head back to the grocery store and buy a pint from the store. Along the way we spotted the sign for the ‘Dack Shack and Simply Gourmet which had the word bakery on the sign, so we pulled into the parking lot to check them out. As we were walking up to the building, they turned the “open” sign off.
As we hopped back in the van to continue to the grocery store, RB spotted a sign on the gas station across the street that said ice cream shop. So we took the van across the street to investigate. Sure enough, Stewart’s gas stations have ice cream shops inside with hand-dipped ice cream, waffle cones, and shakes. Who knew? We ate our treats at the picnic tables around the side of the building, next to the garbage dumpsters and porta-potties.
Back at our camp site, RB called the Fidelity office again. After waiting on hold for about fifteen minutes, she finally got through to a person. She made an appointment for Friday afternoon. The forecast called for rain on Friday, so we shouldn’t mind too much taking a couple of hours out of our day to drive to Albany. Taking care of business while on the road is not always easy.
RB attempted to make chicken nachos in the Omnia Oven (paid link) on our butane stove (paid link). She loaded the tortilla chips with grated cheese, leftover sautéed peppers and onions, and half a can of chicken. After waiting close to half an hour with the burner on low, the cheese still had not melted. We decided to eat it anyway, adding chopped tomatoes and green salsa. The chicken was still cold in spots. Since the Omnia Oven only held a little over one serving, RB decided to make another attempt.
This time she just put the grated cheese, peppers, onions, and chicken in a normal covered pan and turned the burner on low. It took only about ten minutes to melt the cheese and warm everything up. We attempted to scoop the warm ingredients out of the pan and onto our tortilla chips, but the cheese quickly solidified back into one big blob. OK, it was edible, but not the most satisfying dinner. We’re thinking a microwave is going to be one of the van additions for next season.
And that ended our day. Looking back at the day, even though it was frustrating, we did accomplish almost everything we set out to do. We went to bed hoping a good night’s sleep will brighten our spirits and that tomorrow will be a better day.
Yes, there are highs and lows when traveling. If you expect there will be some bad days, it makes it easier to get through them. It’s OK to feel frustrated or moody or blah every now and then. Just don’t let it drag you down for the whole trip. As Annie would sing, “The sun will come out tomorrow”.
Check out our related video: Lake Placid, New York
(RB)