Whiteface

Ok, I gotta admit this wasn't a very long hike and it wasn't very wilderness like in nature, but it was still pretty cool. We were visiting some of Jacqueline's dad's friends who lived in the Adirondacks, Greg and Sue. They were being amazing hosts taking us to some of the hotspots around the area. One such place was Whiteface where we could drive nearly to the top, but had to walk the last little bit. We left early to make sure that we could get a parking spot. The road was pretty steep with some big switchbacks and some nice views. Eventually we got to this building that was built into the mountainside and into the road that we had to drive right under. I think this was built at a time when cars were much smaller. 

We went under it and found a parking spot. Then we headed to the trail. It was somewhat busy and very steep. There were a series of stairs and quite a few railings along the way. I hiked with the kids trying to keep up with Conrad as he made his way up there. Jacqueline hiked with Zyla. It wasn't very long until we hiked the 200 feet to the top from an elevation of 4600 to an elevation of above 4800 feet. The views were great. There were some clouds, but they would clear and we could see lakes all over the place. There were also more mountains and I could see why Greg and Sue liked this area. There were numerous trails, lakes, mountains, and rivers to keep one occupied with nature. I could see how it could take many years and you still didn't feel like you had done it all. 

Once everybody made it up to the top, we wandered around for a little bit. There was another building up on top that we looked at. This was definitely an example of an east coast area where the wilderness nature had been "improved" upon by people 100 years ago. It wasn't so bad as long as they weren't all like this and we enjoyed the scenery from Whiteface. We saw some other groups coming up various different ways to get to the top with one group going right up a steep gully. That looked interesting. We headed back down and spent the rest of the day at the ski jump at Lake Placid. That was really neat. We got to see Olympic level ski jumpers do a ski jump onto some plastic that imitated snow. Funny to see people ski jumping in 80 degree weather. We really enjoyed our time in the Adirondacks.