Weekend Trip Idea: Lake Placid and the High Peaks in the Summer

If you couldn’t tell already, I’m a big fan of Lake Placid.  I was  just there in February and visited in January a year before that.

While the success of the previous trip has me already planning a return trip this winter, Lake Placid and the surrounding Adirondack High Peaks would make for a great summer getaway.

Lake Placid, located pretty much as up-state as you could get in upstate New York (it’s just an hour and a half below Montreal), is a hike.  It’s 4.5 hours from Scranton, which is pretty much as upstate as you could get in Pennsylvania, so I’d recommend taking a long weekend to properly utilize your time there.

During the summer, the skiing and bobsledding and ice skating that made the town famous are obviously not on the table.  Hiking is a big draw here.

If you want to be a true Adirondacker, try to tackle the high peaks, 46 mountains that are each over 4,000 feet tall.  Mount March and Mount Algonquin are the two highest.  This map shows you all the hiking in the immediate Lake Placid vicinity, and breaks it down by views, waterfalls, picnic areas, etc, if you aren’t looking for something as strenuous.

If you like mountain views, but don’t feel like working to get them, take a drive up the Whiteface Veterans Memorial Highway, a drive that snakes its way to the top of the ski slopes.  For $10.00, you could take the toll road to the summit, where you can park, eat, hike, and look through viewfinders.

Whiteface itself has a host of summertime activities including hiking, mountain biking, Thursday night yoga on the summit, and an its own Oktoberfest if you don’t mind waiting till September.

Mirror Lake (the lake the town of Lake Placid sits around) and Lake Placid offer the requisite boating, kayaking, paddleboarding, and swimming.  Lake Placid has a ton of small hotels and inns, but a popular summertime option seems to be VRBO: renting a home that comes with a dock/boat/etc.

A fun idea might be to invest in some headlamps for a night time/sunset hike or kayak and check out the Adirondack Bar Blog, especially if you want to find a bar with outdoor seating.

If you want to get out of town, check out the Ausable Chasm, a sandstone gorge located 30 miles away in Keenesville NY.  They have rappelling tours, rafting, and nighttime lantern tours.  I really like their adventure course: exploring the gorge via a series of rope bridges and cable hook-ups.

If you’re looking for a weeklong trip idea, combine Lake Placid and Burlington.