September 18-20, 2009 Lake Placid and up-state New York Adventures
Friday morning we drove about 150 miles along some very picturesque scenery following Highway 3. The trees are getting more colorful every day. After checking into our campground we went into the village of Lake Placid and enjoyed an afternoon browsing around this mountain resort area, reminds us a bit of Lake Tahoe or Mammoth. Lake Placid hosted the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympic Games.
Saturday we had an exciting Olympic Experience. We started the morning off riding up Whiteface Mountain on the Cloudsplitter Gondolas. The 360 degree view of the Adirondack Mountains was amazing. It was a bit chilly up on top, 35 degrees. We then went to the Olympic Jumping Complex. We watched training sessions of freestyle ski jumpers going off ski jumps into a swimming pool below – amazing athleticism. From there we took a chair lift and a 26 story elevator to the top of the k-120 jump tower, YIKES, that was way up there, can’t imagine doing that. As we drove out of this area we saw the Olympic torch (not lit), it stands in the equestrian area. Our next venue was at the Olympic Sports Complex. We went on a tour of the bobsled/skeleton/luge run. They will be icing it up and preparing it for training in the next week. We also saw parts of the original 1932 runs that were cut into the rock of the hillside. This was followed by our bobsled ride. We rode a wheeled bobsled, complete with driver and brakeman down the ½ mile track. We did it in just over 40 seconds. Phew, it was twisting and turning and zigzagging; what a rush. Our last stop for the day was at the Olympic Center; we toured through the museum and walked around the 2 ice rinks. This was where the famous 1980 ice hockey game took place -- the U.S. Team beating the championship Russian Team. Wow, what an amazing day.
Sunday morning we took a great hike along the High Falls Gorge on the AuSable River. This was a beautiful area with very large granite and anthracite rocks, some dating 1 ½ billion years old. The falls were lined with pine, birch and ash trees, many beginning show their fall colors. We then headed east and out of New York State. But just before we crossed Lake Champlain we discovered another beautiful area, AuSable Chasm, a deep granite canyon with a beautiful river and falls.