The Adirondacks Blog

A Tribal Gathering: The Lake Placid Loppet

Posted on by Peter Minde

Friday morning at Mount van Hoevenberg, it was quiet. Only the squeak of our skis on wicked cold snow broke the silence. My friend Colin and I had van Ho to ourselves for the ritual pre-race warmup. The Lake Placid Loppet loomed.

Adored and cursed, the Loppet has been my muse for over 20 years. The hardest race in the northeast, it’s the standard by which I judge the difficulty of any other race. Although I’ve had some good finishes, I’ve not yet made my coveted goal of a three-hour finish, and time’s running out for that.

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Tagged: Adirondacks, Nordic Skiing, ORDA3 Comments

Garnet Hill Lodge Ski Center, NY

Posted on by Harvey

Garnet Hill and I go way back. In 1988, I did some of my first “downhill skiing” on some very skinny skis on the hill.  On my very first run in the Adirondacks, I skied down from the Lodge to the Ski Shop on “The Cut Off Trail” — a short and fairly steep run with a 90 degree left hand turn at the bottom of the steepest part.

View from Garnet Hill Lodge

The hill had just been through a thaw/freeze cycle and it was actually pretty sporty. Yes it’s true — I crashed in the first corner and thought… “this is going to be a long day.”

It snowed overnight and conditions really improved. In fact on each of my first trips to Garnet Hill conditions were excellent. At the time I had no idea how special it was to score new snow on trips planned weeks in advance.

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Tagged: Adirondacks, Garnet Hill, Nordic Skiing1 Comment

Ski Day 16: Like a Local

Posted on by Harvey

Ski Day 16: Saturday started normally. We woke at our usual time, me at 6am, and the girls at 6:45. We played it like a Sunday with Zelda sitting it out. Neve and I were at Gore by 7:45, and we got in one of the first Gondi cars to load.  Same as it ever was.

Sunrise in North River

We skied a mix of pure corduroy and ungroomed manmade snow on the lower mountain. The cord was decent, and the little drifts of windblown manmade were a total blast. The bottom mountain was cold, but calm.

Neve was pushing to go to the top. On our second run, the rope was down and we dropped into Pine Knot. A slight breeze and colder temps made it very chilly at the summit.

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Tagged: Adirondacks11 Comments