WHITEFACE MOUNTAIN & LAKE PLACID NEW YORK

Thursday, June 12 - We left the Schroon River RV Park around 7:45 am and headed north on I-87 and then took the exit to Route 73/Route 9. We passed a beautiful lake - Lake Chapel. Saw many signs marking trailheads for hikers. Saw many signs of Fallen Rock zones along with sheer drop offs. Evergreen firs, plenty of Birch trees with their white bark, and pines filled in a thick forest on both sides of the mountain. There were plenty of “use Low Gear” signs with steep grades. We went over the Ausable River. Many homes have purple and yellow daylilies in their landscapes. At the exit, Ray came to a complete halt when he saw the bridge over the interstate had a sign 12’8”. A bridge has to be 13 feet high or more for us to drive safely under. Ray decided to measure both bridges to be sure they were safe and then we cautiously drove under them. We started to ascend the mountain and saw ahead of us higher mountains with huge bald spots without trees and steep rock formations. We arrived around 10 am at Lake Placid/Whiteface Mountain KOA Park, Wilmington, New York. The park is full of trees so they have cable with 60 channels for us TV nuts. The high is around 75 degrees so it is very pleasant. Unfortunately, our site had a 5th wheel on it and we had to wait over an hour for them to move to another site. Our site is very popular since it is on a corner with lots of room. Looking out our windows, we see nothing but trees Set among tall pines and white birch, the Lake Placid KOA lets you see why this gorgeous Adirondack Mountains countryside was chosen as the site for the 1980 Olympic Winter Games.

This campground features spacious big-rig sites with a separate tent area, lean-tos and Cabins overlooking the trout-famous Ausable River. Mountain-hike from site or take advantage of canoe and kayak rentals, fun-cycles, mini golf, hayrides, movies, a game room, a playground, a snack bar and planned activities. Enjoy the campground's heated pool and socialize in the Adirondack-style lodge. Special weekends include dinners and DJ music Friday, June 13 - Located in the town of Wilmington, Whiteface Mountain was home of Lake Placid’s alpine skiing events during the 1980 Olympic Winter Games. Whiteface Mountain is the fifth highest mountain in the Adirondacks. Since we had a beautiful day, we took a pleasant drive to see our surrounding areas. The picture is of the Olympic Building.

We drove through the parking lot of Whiteface Mountain Aerial Chairlift (aka Cloudsplitter). We drove over the Ausable River and took some pictures of two men that were fly-fishing. A beautiful setting. High Falls Gorge. A billion years in the making, this preserve is spectacular. A New York Natural Wonder. It is a privately owned park in the heart of the six million acre Adirondack state park. Originally opened in the 1890’s, tourists have been drawn for centuries to the spectacular show nature displays in the gorge. There are groomed paths, steel bridges, and walkways have been provided for visitors to view this natural wonder. It was a relaxing stroll along age-old rock formations and cascading waters framed by the delicate wildflowers and lush green vegetation. They have many trails for those more able to climb the rock formations. Their gift shop is very well supplied with books, home décor and items that reflect the natural beauty and art of The Adirondacks.

Saturday, June 14 - Woke up to a semi-cloudy sky but beautiful when the sunlight hits the leaves in our own personal forest here at the Lake Placid/Whiteface Mountain KOA park. Weather will be getting worse throughout the day as a cold front competes with the warm front and will see a line of thunderstorms late this afternoon.

Ray is riding the bike this morning and this area is full of roads that bikers love. Our temperature will be in mid-80s today. It was amazing to see the tent sites in the park filled with families for the weekend. I feel not too many RVers are here because this is summer season and most retirees don’t care to be at a family KOA when school is out. See children everywhere, which is unusual for us. This park is very large.

Ray took a bike ride to see Ausable Chasm (Yosemite of the East) a thousand acres of natural beauty. One of the oldest attractions in the United States (est. 1870), the sites of the Chasm are breathtaking. Formed nearly 500 million years ago during a time geologist’s call the Cambrian period. You can view the famous Elephants Head and Rainbow Falls and take a family raft adventure through the Grand Flume and Whirlpool Basin. Visitors enjoy walking along towering cliffs and through a primeval forest, peering into the gorge and floating the legendary waters of the Ausable River.

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This deep, tortuous gorge was one of America’s first tourist attractions, and its grandeur has hardly paled over the years. Chasm has beautifully textured, sheer sandstone walls -- sculpted over millennia through Cambrian rock formed over 500 million years ago by the Ausable River on its way into Lake Champlain. In places, these magnificent walls--between 100 and 200 feet high -- stand as close together as 20 feet.

Township of Jay is located where the East Branch of the Ausable River meets the West Branch to the towering mountaintops and includes some of the most breathtaking vistas in the Adirondack Mountains. Only 8 miles from Whiteface Mountain, the only Olympic downhill ski center in the East and the highest point in New York State you can drive up.

Au Sable Forks is unique and where two rivers, the East Branch and the West Branch meet and simply become one, the Ausable River, flowing another 22 miles from here to Lake Champlain. The village of Au Sable Forks straddles two counties, with Essex on the southern shore of the Ausable River and Clinton on the northern shore. The High Peaks is the name for the 46 highest mountain peaks in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, USA, and the region around them. This group of mountains was originally believed to comprise all of the Adirondack peaks higher than 4,000 feet. However, later surveying showed that four of the peaks in the group are actually less than 4,000 feet, and one peak that possibly should have been included was overlooked. However, due to tradition, no mountains were removed from or added to the group because of the revised elevation estimates.

All except four are located in southern Essex County, south of Lake Placid and Wilmington, NY. The others are in a nearby region of Franklin County NY. All the summits are on land owned by New York State as part of its Forest Preserve. Thirty-three are in a vast tract of nearly 300,000 acres known as the High Peaks Wilderness Complex, subdivided into eastern (twenty-six peaks) and western (seven peaks) zones. Others are in the adjacent Giant and Dix wilderness areas. Whiteface, which doubles as a ski area and has a toll road to its summit, and Esther are set slightly to the north, near Wilmington, NY. The Adirondack Forty-Sixers is a club open to all who have climbed, or intend to climb, all the peaks. Neither Mount Marcy nor Algonquin Peak, the two highest, require technical skills, but Algonquin Peak is regarded as the more challenging climb. Twenty peaks have no official trail to the top, although rough informal routes, commonly referred to as "herd paths," have developed over the years and no true bushwhacking is required on any of the peaks, although some are still quite primitive. Atop the highest peaks, there is a total of 87 acres of extraordinarily fragile alpine ecosystem above the tree line. This number is constantly changing due to variation in the climate from year to year. The region contains many alpine lakes and meadows, wetlands, streams, and forests. Unfortunately, the high number of visitors is degrading the natural beauty of some of the more heavily travelled areas of the region, and it has been necessary in recent years to more strictly regulate access and use. The Eastern High Peaks Wilderness area is the most regulated area. Fires are not permitted; dogs must be leashed; overnight groups are limited to eight people and day groups to fifteen; and Bear Resistant Food Canisters are required from April through November. Sunday, June 15 - We drove to see the Saranac Lakes and visit the Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks, The Wild Center. The entire facility is one of the greenest in New York, and the first museum in the state to be LEED certified. We enjoyed the 12-minute film “Ride of the Mergansers” which shows the ingenuity and sophistication of the naturalists’ cameras of this century. They actually captured the female Merganser sitting on her 14 eggs inside a wooden built nest very high up off the ground. Mergansers are ducks and I never knew they would actually make their nest of plucked down off her breast along with wood chips inside this small box. The camera showed the birds as they plucked out of their shells and then how the mom would fly out and expect her 24-hour old chicks to do the same. It was amazing. Young Common Mergansers leave their nest hole within a day or so of hatching. The mother protects the chicks, but she does not feed them. They dive to catch all of their own food. They eat mostly aquatic insects at first, but switch over to fish when they are about 12 days old We also met the curator or Wild Center Naturalist with the museum who gave a program on “Ravens - Bird Brains?” He showed many video clips about the ravens’ incredible behaviors and proving their intelligence. He also brought out one of the two live-in ravens for demonstration.

We took the 1/3rd mile (short) walk around the Blue Pond. We were not able to see any visible wildlife, but the lake is full of fish and other native species of frogs, turtles and insects. There are 31 acres and they have naturalist guides or you can walk their nature trails on your own. We enjoyed the live exhibits inside as well. They have rare native trout, river otters, turtles the size of silver dollar and many other often hard-to-see residents of the Adirondack woods and waters. I especially enjoyed watching the two Otters swimming back and forth for our pleasure. They were were in constant motion.

We also took the drive up Whiteface Mountain. You pass through what looks like a Swiss alpine chalet. That’s the 1934 tollhouse that marks the beginning of the 5-mile-long Veterans Memorial Highway. It’s more than just a toll gate where you’ll pay your part for the up-keep of this amazing feat of civil engineering — it’s also a visitors interpretive center highlighting the historic and natural significance of the area. From 2,351 feet above sea level at the tollhouse to 4,602 feet at the Castle driveway, 5 miles away, the road has an increase in elevation of 450 feet per mile. Besides the steady climb, the narrowness of the road, and the hair-pin turns, there’s one more good reason for the 25-mph speed limit: frost heaves the washboard-like deformations left by water freezing beneath the macadam surface through the long, cold Adirondack winter.

A road up the mountain was first suggested over 100 years ago by a Lake Placid entrepreneur, but it was not until the 1920s that a highway up Whiteface was promoted with real vigor — after a road was paved up Pike’s Peak in Colorado. The prospect of constructing a new road through the Wilmington Wild Forest split the membership of the Adirondack Mountain Club and was opposed by other leading conservationists, but it won support from one highly influential group of Empire State voters: the network of American Legion members all across New York. The owner of the four acres at the peak of Whiteface contributed them to the project with the proviso that the road be dedicated to the memory of America’s Great War veterans. It was later rededicated to the memory of all American veterans. Built in the 1930s, the highway itself has been nominated for the National Register of Historic Places. Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated the construction project in 1929. Six years later, Roosevelt returned as the American president to cut the ribbon opening the highway. It was the suggestion of a wheelchair-bound FDR that led to the blasting of an elevator tunnel to carry visitors from the parking lot to the summit of Whiteface Mountain, rising 4,867 feet above sea level.

It is certainly an amazing feat of engineering. Once we arrived at the top, we were shown where to park. Beneath a cut-stone archway is the entrance to a 426-foot tunnel cut into the granite. The ceiling of the gradually rising tunnel is perhaps 7 feet above the floor, and there are maybe 6-1/2 feet between the walls. There are lamps every 10 feet at about knee height and metal handrails on either side of the path. The narrow tunnel is a cold 40 degrees and a short walk through the heart of the mountain nearly a mile above sea level. You then take a very small elevator (with an attendant) that slowly raises us through the mountain to the top where the door opens out onto a porch where you can see 360-degree views. From the parking lot, there is the Castle that doesn’t look like much, but the Moorish stone arches along its driveway and inside, and the view from the upstairs gift shop is amazing. The Castle has two other attractions: It’s heated, and it has the only bathrooms available for use by Whiteface summit guests. The view from the top of Whiteface Mountain is truly unique, because Whiteface stands apart from all the other Adirondack High Peaks.

The Castle at the top of Whiteface Mountain.

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