We were woken early on our 2nd day of our trip by grouse in the forest nearby. We enjoyed our first camp breakfast before packing up to get back out on the road.
We decided to take the High Peaks scenic byway this day and enjoyed the scenic drive and saw tons of hiking trails being well used. (We will definitely have to return to tackle some of these trails at a future date).
We drove the main strip of Lake George, and noted it was a very busy spot. The main strip was quite tacky from what we saw and the traffic was insane. We did however decide to drive up Prospect Mountain. One thing to note is that dogs are not allowed on the trail to the summit so I would recommend you don’t take your pet with you. They did not mention this at the gate, but signs were posted everywhere at the parking lot that dogs were not permitted. Since this was the case, Dave stayed back at the car with our dog Tessa while I made the trek up to the top with our daughter.
The trail to the summit is a paved path but quite steep which finishes in stairs. This path would be too steep for a stroller. The alternative is to walk the roadway or you can take a shuttle from the summit parking lot. The views from up top were very nice and there is a nice little picnic area as well.
After our stop here we then got back on the road. We ran into some decent sized hail, winds and heavy rains at the New York-Vermont border as we passed through the Washington Correctional Facilities which forced us to pull over. When we thought the hail had passed and the rain appeared to be getting lighter we headed back out on the road to be hit with hail again, not 5 minutes down the road. We pulled over again and waited it out.
Playing around while riding out the storm
Killington, VT has some spectacular views and much larger hills/mountains.
As we continued to drive along we noted a number of washed out areas including collapsed/washed out homes and bridges. We later found out that this was damaged done by Hurricane Irene which hit the area in August 2011.
We checked into our campsite at Silver Lake State Park mid-afternoon. We greeted at the gate by one of the park wardens. He was very friendly, welcoming and helpful. This was the best campground we have ever camped at. We decided to book a camp site with a lean to. We were amazed at how clean the campground was including the washrooms. This is a fairly small campground with a number of lean to sites located on Silver Lake which is a small lake with a sandy beach within the park. The lean-tos are very well maintained and were very clean as well. Even if you were camping on a site without the lean to’s this would be a nice spot to camp as some of the sites are grassy and those that are not have the fine gravel on them so no large rocks or stones to stick in your back at night.
It was definitely cooler by the time we got to the campground so we changed into pants and long sleeve shirts before doing anything else.
Once the site was set up we headed into Bethel to the general store to get some groceries. They have an on site butcher for fresh meat as well. We took the winding road into town which took about 10 minutes and it was a nice drive as well.
Our daughter had a blast playing in the bin lids in the dining tent while we cooked dinner.
After dinner our daughter was put down to sleep in the tent which we had set up in the lean-to. She played for about 30 minutes or so in the tent before zonking out. She was having a blast in the tent scooting around, checking out the pockets, our sleeping bags, and pushing her face into the sides of the tent seeing how it moved. It was hard for us not to laugh when we would see the imprint of her face pushing out the tent. Once she was out Dave and I decided to play some Sequence. The campground was pretty quiet by 8:30pm.
To see what else we saw on this trip check out the below links:
Technically this will be about the first night and the following days adventures since we headed out after dinner and a bath the first night.
Loaded in the car and ready to go
As soon as we had loaded up the car the skies opened up and the heavy rain started. We didn’t want to delay getting on the road too long as we didn’t want to mess with our daughters bedtime too, too much. We waited a few minutes then decided to head out anyways since it did not look like the rain was going to let up. We drove through the rain on and off until about the Hwy 35 exit. We decided just to head along the 401 for the quickest and most direct route for the first portion of our trip.
We crossed over into the USA at Ogdensburg, NY. This is a very small bridge crossing and no large trucks or trailers are permitted on the bridge. It is a metal grate bridge so with the slow posted driving speed it can be a rather noisy trip over. We were the only ones on the bridge when we crossed. The border guard was very friendly and probably got a good chuckle out of us driving over the bridge. He said it was pretty obvious we had not crossed over at this spot before. There is a $2 toll fee after you pass through the crossing.
We stayed at the Quality Inn Gran-View on State Hwy 37. This was the one recommended on Trip Advisor. It was a clean hotel and there was a continental breakfast offered in the morning. One of the up sides was that they do allow dogs. The downside was that they do not have baby cribs, cots or playpens for your little one to sleep in, so we had to share the bed. Our daughter was so excited when we woke her at the hotel. She had to climb all over the bed, us and the pillows when we were trying to sleep. It ended up being a rather late night before she finally wore herself out.
We were off the next morning fairly early on our way to Lake Placid. We drove through the outskirts of Saranac Lake on the way, but Dave was very focused on getting to our destination for the night that there was not much stopping along the way. We stopped in a little town along the way to pick up a few grocers and pick up some lunch. We ended up stopping on the side of the road in front of a cute little cemetery to have our picnic lunch and allow our daughter to stretch her legs a little. Where possible we did stray a little from the more direct route and took some winding and more scenic roads instead as we approached the Lake Placid area. There were some beautiful mountain views along the way.
We arrived at the campground in the early afternoon. We stayed at ADK Adirondack Loj. We had decided to rent a canvas cabin to ease our daughter into the whole concept of tent camping. The check in was nice and quick. They were however warning lots about bears. The canvas cabin was not what we expected, but was rather a canvas tent on a platform with 3 sets of single bunk beds. Since bunk beds weren’t going to work with a 9 month old, we decided we would set up our tent within the tent (we have a small canoe tripping tent so it fit very easily inside). There is no privacy between the canvas cabins and you are not permitted to set up another tent on the site. While the campground was nice enough, next time we would most likely stay somewhere else as this was quite a ways out of the town of Lake Placid. The great part of staying here is the proximity to a wide range of hiking trails on site.
Lake Placid Ski jumps from a distance
Once the tent was set up we headed to the little shop on site to get some information about the various hikes on site and for recommendations. The ladies in the store suggested we hike out to Rocky Falls since it was a nice destination. This was roughly an 8.5km hike from our campsite. The trail was moderate- rocky trail near the beginning with some ups and downs, but overall there were no real challenges for us. We only passed 1 person on the trails so it was nice and quiet and we could hear the birds and enjoy the woods.
Once we reached the falls Dave went in for a swim with the dog while our daughter had fun splashing at the waters edge and enjoying the view.
We did find the blackflies to be quite thick on the trail, so I would recommend some bug spray or bug patches while hiking this trail.
Once we returned to camp we headed into the town of Lake Placid to do some wandering and have dinner. We settled on 3 Bears for dinner. The service was excellent, great views and the food was good as well. Lake Placid is a really cute little town with some neat shops as well as your standard stores, lots of places to eat and spectacular views. We would love to return to this area again to do some more exploring.
Our daughter was too excited again to sleep this night so we were up fairly late while she checked out every square inch of the tent and climbed on us.
To see what else we saw on this trip check out the links below:
