After sweating it out across the Midwest in August all I wanted was to be cool. The heat, humidity and mosquitoes of North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, it was all just too much to take without AC in the van. There was no escaping all the wetness. The water bottles were sweating all the time, the clothes, the sheets just felt wet. Tim did buy us a small dehumidifier which does help but to get it to work you have to close all the windows and that is not really practical when it is hot outside. Exhausted and knowing we had to keep moving east because we have plans to see family and also plans to see the Great Smokey Mountains in the fall, I looked at the map in my Weatherbug app and saw that the closest place where there is a pocket of coolness is the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Even though we both grew up in Connecticut neither one of us was familiar with the Adirondacks aside from my vague recollection of a trip to Lake George when I was a child. Looking at the tourist websites, Lake Placid sounds familiar, think Winter Olympics, think skiing, think mountains, sounds good! However, there is no camping in Lake Placid, it is now a busy tourist town. The closest camping is about 10 miles away in Wilmington, NY. We set our sights on the North Pole Campground. We thought about stopping at Niagara Falls but in the end we decided that it is not something either one of us is really excited about seeing so we do not bother. Tim wanted to check out his childhood home where he lived only until age four in small town upstate NY. He had an amazing recollection of where the house was located and other structures in the neighborhood.
Hiking
Hiking in the Adirondacks is all about the rocks, the mud and the crazy tree roots that look like they may come alive and wrap themselves around your ankle at any moment, very different from the desert hiking I know and love. Here, there are no switchbacks, the trails go straight up the mountain. We completed two hikes while we were there, the Flume Knob and Whiteface Mountain. We prefer to walk to hiking trails right out of our campsite rather than packing up the van, unplugging, taking the window covering off, spinning the seats back to forward facing position and driving somewhere. Also parking the van at trailheads can be difficult since it is 22’ 9” long. We walked 1.5 miles each way to the Flume Knob trail, which was only a four mile RT hike, so about 7 miles all together. Relatively steep, straight up the hill, nice views. The second hike, Whiteface Mountain was VERY challenging. We were able to start walking right out of the campground and it eventually connected to a trail that goes up Whiteface, which is the 5th highest mountain in NY at 4,865 feet. This elevation pales in comparison to some mountains I have hiked in the west, but that has no bearing on the difficulty of the hike, this was tough, very steep, endless rocks with scrambling. There is a road that you can PAY to drive up the mountain but when you are hiking and the road is open, you are not allowed to even walk on the road. There is one part where the trail comes out on the road but you just have to climb up some rocks to stay on the trail, don’t walk on the road!
Lake Placid
I did not realize Lake Placid was not only home to one Winter Olympics in 1980, but actually hosted the event in 1932 as well. Also, the town of Lake Placid, a busy little tourist town with shops and restaurants, is not actually on the LAKE of Lake Placid, imagine that? There is a lake in town, but it is Mirror Lake. While in town we wandered into the Olympic Ice skating rink. Turns out there are two rinks in the building, one from the 1932 games and one from 1980. In our ongoing quest for coolness we decide to sit in the stands at the 1932 rink for a while and catch some cool air off the ice. Just so happens they have “Freaky Friday” ice skating competitions during the summer and one is about to start. It only lasted 10 minutes and contestants were mostly young girls but nice to see they are pursuing something.
North Pole
In Wilmington we stayed at the North Pole Campground which turned out to be a good campground. It was relatively quiet, bathrooms and showers were clean and they had some trails in the woods you could walk on. Not much wildlife to speak of aside from the white tail of a deer I saw running away one night. We did see a very unique wood pecker in camp one day. He had a bright red head and he was big, maybe more than a foot tall. We were also able to walk to a little town beach where they had a band playing one night.
Fort Ticonderoga
While in NY we went to see an old military fort, Fort Ticonderoga. As you know, history, not my thing, but Tim enjoyed it. The fort was built by the French on Lake Champlain in the 1750’s, then taken over by the British, eventually lost to the Americans in the Revolutionary War. In 1777 the Americans were forced to abandon Ticonderoga due to the British threat from above on Mount Defiance, which we did drive up and you can clearly see the advantage the Brits had from the high point. While we were at Fort Ticonderoga they fired a canon which was cool!
Signs of Fall
Leaves are starting to change color, it must cool down soon.
exitthecube.com 