Lake Placid

We arrived in Lake Placid after dark, and it was only at breakfast that the place revealed itself: I pulled back the curtain and there was Mirror Lake, absolutely motionless, holding an upside-down forest and a sky just turning pink. Lia was still asleep, so I crept out onto the little dock alone, coffee going cold in my hand, and listened to a loon call somewhere across the water. There is a particular quiet in the Adirondacks — not empty, but full of small sounds — and it undid something in me after weeks of louder American cities. This was a mountain village that happened to have hosted the whole planet twice, and wore neither fact heavily.

The Olympic ghosts

You cannot walk far here without bumping into 1932 and 1980. Lia and I rode the elevator up the towering ski jumps at the Olympic Jumping Complex, and from the top platform the whole valley spread out — the leap the jumpers face is genuinely terrifying, a plunge into treetops. Down at the Olympic Center we stood in the arena where the American hockey team beat the Soviets in the “Miracle on Ice,” and even as a Frenchman with no stake in it, I felt the hair rise on my arms. What I loved was how unpolished it all is: no gleaming theme park, just working sports facilities where athletes still train, the past kept alive by use rather than by nostalgia.

Up Whiteface and into the High Peaks

The next day we drove the Whiteface Veterans’ Memorial Highway, a serpent of a road that climbs to a stone castle near the summit. From there a lift and a short, steep scramble put us on top, breathless, with the Adirondacks rolling away in every direction and, on the clear northern horizon, the faint blue smudge of Lake Champlain and Vermont beyond. Wind snapped at Lia’s jacket and we didn’t linger long, but the immensity stayed with us. Back down in the valley we walked part of the trail network around the High Peaks trailheads, boots crunching on roots and pine needles, and passed hikers heading for Mount Marcy with the quiet purpose of people who do this every weekend.

Main Street and the water

Evenings belonged to Main Street, which curves along Mirror Lake — confusingly, since the actual Lake Placid lies just behind it, quieter and grander. We rented a canoe and paddled Mirror Lake at dusk, past great camps half-hidden in the trees, then came back to town for maple everything: maple candy, maple in the coffee, maple on ice cream. Lia bought far too much fudge. We ended up on the lakeside deck of a brewery, sharing a plate of local trout as the mountains went from green to black, the water lapping just below the railing. It felt less like a resort than like someone’s beloved, slightly old-fashioned summer place.

Getting There

Lake Placid is gloriously remote, which is half its charm. The nearest airports are Adirondack Regional in Saranac Lake, half an hour west, or the bigger hubs of Albany (about two and a half hours south) and Burlington, Vermont, reached across Lake Champlain by ferry and road. Most people, as we did, simply drive — the Adirondack Northway (I-87) runs up the eastern edge of the park, and the final stretch on Route 73 winds spectacularly past cliffs and cascades. There is no need for a car once you arrive; the village is small and walkable, and a free trolley loops the main sights in summer.