My wife and I had planned a trip out to Boston for my older son’s parents weekend and got to make a week out of it to explore Adriondacks and to drive through the foliage in Vermont. We stayed in Lake Placid for a couple of nights and I managed to sneak in ultra #40 on one of the days. While it was very tempting to hit up the trails, I had neither any idea about these trails nor the water situation nor the overall difficulty. Also based on some of the hikes, the trails were pretty hard to see with all the foliage on the ground. So, ended up charting a two-lap course along the roads with the River Road being the highlight of the course. See my Strava activity:
Lake Placid
From our hotel headed out for a loop around the Mirror Lake and then proceeded on Route 86. The night before on our drive I did notice that it had wide shoulders and there wasn’t too much traffic in the morning. Saw signs of trail heads along the way to Cobble Hill, Echo Lake, Whiteface Mountain, but I was going to stick to the route.
The river was gushing, the colors were vibrant and River Road was such a great segment of this course. I saw a picture that said ‘Athletes in Training’ at the start of the River Road, but forgot to take a picture of it.
I got the first loop of 15ish miles done in about 2:30. Had a quick half bagel and ate “breakfast” with my wife and then headed out in the reverse direction. The sun was out now and it was starting to warm up. I wasn’t too crazy about the Hwy 86 section on the north side of River Road, but it was kinda cool to see the Olympic Ski Jump and the Athlete training center. One last loop around Mirror Lake and finished up ultra #40 in about 5:45.
High Falls Gorge
The next morning, on our drive out, we stopped by High Falls Gorge. With tired legs, this turned out to be the perfect recovery hike!
Ten more ultras to go for the year and there’s a part of me that’s getting a little impatient. I’m hoping that I can run the remaining ten before mid-December so it’s not drawn out all the way through the holidays. But one at a time!
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