Lake Placid Mini-review

Report from Lake Placid, NY 12-3-2006

-Only 1-2 inches of snow, so no XC

-Now cold enough to make snow, so the downhill (Whiteface) area is
supposed to open. We saw some folks climbing the slope and maybe skiing
(no lifts running)

-Found that the city (town?) of Lake Placid has a lot of XC trails and
centers in the area. The Jack Rabbit trail goes right through town. I
had a hard time finding any part of the trail (even though it crosses
roads in several places), except for an entrance in the back of the
Howard Johnsons parking lot (which is nicely labeled, and the back of
the sign has directions on how to find the next segment of the trail .
Some info can be found at
http://www.lakeplacid.com/shared/wha...kRabbitMap.cfm )

-Hotel Review: I stayed at Art Devlin's Olympic (on the East end of
town) and found it to be what the other reviewers have said (very clean,
excellent home made muffins and coffee for breakfast, dog friendly,
pretty low cost ($70 range),friendly folks). A few minor downsides,
common to most motels; heater has noisy fan, plumbing (yours and nearby
) is noisy, heat was a bit hard to control settings (mostly too hot).
Did I mention it is clean? Not just clean, not just wife clean, but
grandma/mother-in-law clean!

-Trail Review: I didn't get so ski, but did hike some on the Jackrabbit
Trail behind HoJOs (BTW, this is one of 3 remaining HOJO restaurants,
and is the oldest (opened in 1956) in the country.)
The trail is quite picturesque, 4-6 ft wide, nice pine forest, well
marked at intersections. It needs a good snow cover to be skiable ; lots
of rocks, some roots. I think this is an ungroomed section of the trail,
so other spots may be smoother.

-Village of Lake Placid: pretty place, lots of shops. The Italian
pizza/restaurant just to the west of Atr Devlin's has excellent calzone
(it is 100-200 yards away). The Jack Frost restaurant is ok but nothing
special. Sunday night the sidewalks petty much roll up and we had a hard
time finding a place to eat.

- Santas Workshop; nearby (12 miles) in Wilminton; This is a piece of
1950. I was here as a kid (to young to remember anything!), and most
still seems the same. This is the original North Pole, reputed to have
given Disney his idea for Disneyland. Current jaded kids over the age of
8 will say hokum and phoo-ey, but I had a nice time visiting Santa
again, petting the reindeer, eating hot chocolate and hot Cinnamon
rolls, and talking to the blacksmith (who knows the history of the area
and Santas Workshop inside-out).
gr

did you check the whiteface highway? It may have some snow left from
the earlier snowfall that could be skiable. I used to strap my snowskis
to a pack, rollerski from the tolls to the snow line, switch to snow
skis, and then snow ski up to the observatory. A good adventure for
~2-3 hours. And you end up above the lifts, which is rewarding.

the welcome there sign says "Village of Lake Placid".

The Jack Rabbit trail goes right through town. I
had a hard time finding any part of the trail (even though it crosses
roads in several places), except for an entrance in the back of the
Howard Johnsons parking lot (which is nicely labeled, and the back of
the sign has directions on how to find the next segment of the trail .

I only went to Lake Placid once, many years ago (and I can't find the
trail maps that I must have somewhere), but it was in the middle of a
very snowy winter, so at least there were ski tracks to follow.
(Although that was only partly helpful with the road crossings.)

Sounds like an opportunity for amateur map-making! If you can't find
good maps, make your own. All you need is a GPS receiver and a
computer, and mostly free software. Generally, amateur-made maps are
*better* than what you can find commercially.

Lew Lasher
Cambridge, Massachusetts and Stowe, Vermont

On Tue, 05 Dec 2006 08:08:38 GMT, Lew Lasher
wrote:

The Jack Rabbit trail goes right through town. I
had a hard time finding any part of the trail (even though it crosses
roads in several places), except for an entrance in the back of the
Howard Johnsons parking lot (which is nicely labeled, and the back of
the sign has directions on how to find the next segment of the trail .

I only went to Lake Placid once, many years ago (and I can't find the
trail maps that I must have somewhere), but it was in the middle of a
very snowy winter, so at least there were ski tracks to follow.
(Although that was only partly helpful with the road crossings.)

Sounds like an opportunity for amateur map-making! If you can't find
good maps, make your own.
I'm pretty sure there are maps of the JRT available in town, such as
at High Peaks Cyclery.

--
JT
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Detailed Jack Rabbit trail maps are generally all over town in the
information racks. Two other great backcountry skis are the ski to
Lake Colden starting near the ADK lodge and the Northville-Placid
Trail, nicely laid out on www.gorp.com. First you have to get over
Lake Placid's dirty little secret, the place just doesn't get a lot of
snow many winters.


John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
On Tue, 05 Dec 2006 08:08:38 GMT, Lew Lasher
wrote:

The Jack Rabbit trail goes right through town. I
had a hard time finding any part of the trail (even though it crosses
roads in several places), except for an entrance in the back of the
Howard Johnsons parking lot (which is nicely labeled, and the back of
the sign has directions on how to find the next segment of the trail .

I only went to Lake Placid once, many years ago (and I can't find the
trail maps that I must have somewhere), but it was in the middle of a
very snowy winter, so at least there were ski tracks to follow.
(Although that was only partly helpful with the road crossings.)

Sounds like an opportunity for amateur map-making! If you can't find
good maps, make your own.
I'm pretty sure there are maps of the JRT available in town, such as
at High Peaks Cyclery.

--
JT
****************************
Remove "remove" to reply
Visit http://www.jt10000.com
****************************

Detailed Jack Rabbit trail maps are generally all over town in the
information racks.

don't know how good these free JRT "maps" are now, but several years
ago, on my first visit to LPLacid, I tried following one of these JRT
maps (which looked more like an artistic sketch). I got lost in the
woods in the dark, and had to hitchhike back. The map was not to scale
in some places by at least a factor of 3.

Get a real map, not an artististic sketch.

On 5 Dec 2006 08:30:51 -0800, "Ralph Scott"
wrote:

First you have to get over
Lake Placid's dirty little secret, the place
just doesn't get a lot of
snow many winters.

Yeah, though it seems to me the biggest problem the last few years has
been hard, warm rain several times a winter wiping out what they get.
--
JT
****************************
Remove "remove" to reply
Visit http://www.jt10000.com
****************************

John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
On Tue, 05 Dec 2006 08:08:38 GMT, Lew Lasher
wrote:

The Jack Rabbit trail goes right through town. I
had a hard time finding any part of the trail (even though it crosses
roads in several places), except for an entrance in the back of the
Howard Johnsons parking lot (which is nicely labeled, and the back of
the sign has directions on how to find the next segment of the trail .
I only went to Lake Placid once, many years ago (and I can't find the
trail maps that I must have somewhere), but it was in the middle of a
very snowy winter, so at least there were ski tracks to follow.
(Although that was only partly helpful with the road crossings.)

Sounds like an opportunity for amateur map-making! If you can't find
good maps, make your own.
I'm pretty sure there are maps of the JRT available in town, such as
at High Peaks Cyclery.

Mapmaking is good! I am doing that for trails around Rochester. I tried
to use the merchant map, which shows part of the trail, but it is very
distorted. I tried a few times to get to some of the ski stores, but
they were closed when I was able to get there.
gr

First you have to get over
Lake Placid's dirty little secret, the place
just doesn't get a lot of
snow many winters.

Yeah, though it seems to me the biggest problem the last few years has
been hard, warm rain several times a winter wiping out what they get.
--
JT


I've spent every Christmas in LP from 1999 to 2005, and the rain has
ruined it only once. The rest of the years were very skiable.

Let's see. Have you tried ice skating? I've been skating since the
week after Labor Day. Once I drove through Lake Placid just to say
I've been there. Boston has ski trails all through it, if you make it
out as soon as the air clears after a storm. I used to ski right out
of Davis Sq. daily. Why live in a hoaky N.Y. town when you can live in
a city?
wrote:
First you have to get over
Lake Placid's dirty little secret, the place
just doesn't get a lot of
snow many winters.

Yeah, though it seems to me the biggest problem the last few years has
been hard, warm rain several times a winter wiping out what they get.
--
JT


I've spent every Christmas in LP from 1999 to 2005, and the rain has
ruined it only once. The rest of the years were very skiable.