Monday, February 24, 2014

2.23.2014 - Lake Placid

We've been working really hard and so decided to take an afternoon excursion to Lake Placid - the site of the 1932 and 1980 Olympics.  It's less than 2 hours north of here and an absolutely breathtaking ride through the Adirondack Mountains. 

One of the neatest things we saw was all of the pull off/entrances to the hiking areas.  One of the things we want to explore sometime is hiking these mountains.  There is a "46 Club" for those who have climbed all 46 peaks over 4,000 feet in elevation.  Every pull off was full of cars of people who were hiking.  Very brave souls in the cold and snow - I'm thinking fall hiking would be the best!

The Village of Lake Placid was much what you would expect - quaint, little shops, and loads of hotel space for all those people who came for the Olympics.


This is Mirror Lake - gorgeous - and you could take a dog sled ride if you were so inclined to go out onto a hopefully-frozen lake led by dogs!  The dogs just stood around on the ice for quite awhile that we saw - finally, they got to move and take someone around the lake.


Surprisingly, all of the buildings were open and being used.  We saw girls hockey teams and little figure skaters all use the facilities.  This is the Olympic Center - gorgeous mountains in the background.



Inside the Olympic Center is the skating rink where the "Miracle on Ice" occurred during the 1980 Olympics.


These are the ski jumps - crazy!  You can apparently pay and take an elevator up - sounds very scary to me.  You actually had to pay to even go on the grounds of the jumping area so we took this picture from across the street.

 
Our last stop was the Olympic Sports Complex - it's where the Cross Country, biathlon (cross country skiing and shooting - who knew?), and the bobsled track. 
  

You can pay to ride in the bobsleds - the track was closed when we got there but they allowed us to walk around and look at it.  It's nice that it's still used in some form, but it's kind of sad to see it being used as a carnival ride as opposed to its Olympic glory.  It's definitely looking a bit worn.


 




 

 

 

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