LAKE PLACID, N.Y.: Hikers and backpackers love the High Peaks Wilderness.
The 203,500-acre tract is the largest state-owned wilderness areas in New York’s Adirondack Forest Preserve.
The preserve itself covers 6 million acres and is a patchwork of private and public lands that was created in 1885. It was one of the first public parks created in the United States. Only Yosemite and Yellowstone had come before.
The Adirondack Mountains are a great outdoor playground. The preserve includes more than 2,000 lakes and ponds, 1,200 miles of rivers, 30,000 miles of brooks and 2,000 miles of trails, plus black bear and moose.
The western Adirondacks is a land of water: lakes, ponds, wetlands, rivers and a few mountains.
But the High Peaks Wilderness in the east offers a chance to hike to the top of peaks via maintained trails. It is an accessible wilderness with lots of hiking options. The wilderness contains nearly all of New York’s 46 High Peaks (elevation 4,000 feet or greater), including Mount Marcy and Algonquin Peak, the two tallest at more than 5,000 feet.
Most of those peaks are concentrated south of Lake Placid and near Keene in the nearby Keene Valley, about 530 miles from Akron. Some are above timberline and feature Alpine-like rocky tops with incredible views.
Initially, 46 New York mountains were designated High Peaks. Four were later determined to be under 4,000 feet and one that should have been included was not. But due to tradition, no peaks were added to or eliminated from the original list of 46. All but four are in or near the High Peaks Wilderness.
The area was first hiked in the 1920s by brothers Bob and George Marshall. (Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness is named after one brother.) They listed the most-scenic High Peaks: Mount Haystack, Santanoni Peak, Nippletop, Iroquois Peak, Algonquin Peak with Mount Marcy at No. 8.
The High Peaks Wilderness has nearly 300 miles of trails maintained by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation and nonprofit grass-roots groups. The area features 84 log lean-tos, 300 primitive campsites and 100 privies. It also has 112 lakes and ponds and about 220 miles of cold-water streams.
It gets more than 150,000 visitors annually with extremely heavy use on summer weekends. Trailhead parking lots, lean-tos and designated campsites may all be occupied by early Friday evening.
For information, call 518-897-1200 or go to www.dec.ny.gov.
One place to access that wilderness is from the Adirondack Mountain Club’s base at Heart Lake eight miles south of Lake Placid.
That includes the Adirondack Loj with space for up to 38 guests, plus a 32-site campground, cabins and lean-tos and easy access to high country trails. Meals are provided to lodge guests.
It offers parking for a fee for day-hikers. It also includes the High Peaks Information Center for hikers and backpackers, with educational programs.
In 1890, Henry Van Hoevenberg opened the original Loj and built trails. It burned down in 1903. It was later rebuilt by Melvil Dewey, the man behind the Dewey Decimal System in libraries and a key organizer of the Lake Placid Olympics in 1932.
The club’s facilities sit at the edge of the High Peaks Wilderness and offer numerous trail options to the peaks.
The Van Hoevenberg Trail leads from the edge of the main parking lot to the interior of the High Peaks. It is the most-used trailhead in the Adirondacks, getting more than 37,000 visitors per year. It offers the shortest hike to the top of 5,344-foot Mount Marcy, New York’s tallest peak, at 7.4 miles each way.
The trail’s northern terminus is Mount Van Hoevenberg, near where the bobsled, luge, cross-country skiing and biathalon events were held in the 1980 Olympics. Training facilities are open to visitors.
The trailhead at 2,178 feet is marked by a wooden kiosk with the trail register plus a pile of stones. The New York DEC is asking hikers and backpackers to each carry a small stone to Mount Marcy and four other peaks to minimize human impacts to the Alpine vegetation atop the mountains.
The Adirondack Loj offers other trail options around Heart Lake and to the top of Mount Jo on its property.
The Adirondack Mountain Club with its 35,000 members also operates the John Brooks Lodge that is 3.5 miles from the nearest road near Keene Valley. Meals are provided.
For information, call 518-523-3441 or go to www.adk.org.
Trail options are numerous, but everyone wants to top Mount Marcy, first climbed in 1837. There are several routes.
Avalanche Lake is an 8.8-mile round-trip from the lodge. It goes to a remote mountain pass and a lake nestled in a narrow gorge, flanked by sheer cliffs on both sides. It is pretty impressive.
Tiny Lake Placid with 3,000 residents is filled with Olympic venues: bobsled, luge and skeleton runs, ice rinks, ski jumps and runs. There are museums, and visitors can try some sports. The town celebrates its heritage from the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics. Athletes train here and there are competitions throughout the year. For information, call 518-523-1655 or go to www.orda.org.
The charming, outdoorsy village is filled with hotels, lodges, restaurants and shops. It is actually busier in the summer than in the winter. For tourist information, call 800-447-5224 or go to www.lakeplacid.com.
One attraction close by is the grave of abolitionist John Brown.
Brown, with strong Ohio ties, acquired the 244-acre farm in 1849 with a plan to teach freed slaves how to farm. He moved to Lake Placid from Springfield, Mass., where he had been a conductor on the Underground Railroad.
He left his wife and small children in 1855 to join two sons in the fight over Kansas becoming a slave state or a free state. He occasionally returned to upstate New York to visit his family.
His second wife, Mary, buried him on the property after he was hanged on Dec. 2, 1859, by the state of Virginia after his ill-fated attack on Harpers Ferry.
For many years, abolitionists and freed slaves made pilgrimages to Brown’s grave that lies almost in the shadow of Lake Placid’s ski-jumping complex.
A metal statue of Brown and a young African-American boy was added in 1935. The site is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a National Historic Landmark.
The farmhouse is open for tours from May to October. For more information, call 518-523-3900.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.