The Road Less Travelled-Skiing at Lapland Nordic Ski Center in the Adirondacks
Volume 22-An Awesome Day Spent With My Son
I didn’t realize it was National Sons Day. I didn't even know there was such a thing. Honestly. However, I was lucky enough to spend the day on March 4th with my son cross-country skiing. Better yet we ventured to the Adirondack Park (ADK) here in NY State to experience some awesome skiing. The conditions were perfect and the groomed trails the best I have ever skied. Our timing was good, as today, just 2 days later, we had temperatures near 70 degrees and the snow is disappearing fast.
About a month ago, I wrote a story about another ski outing with my son in the Pharsalia Woods NY State Forest. That was also a fun outing as we skied on a packed down snowmobile trail with ample snow. During that outing my son suggested that we go to the Adirondacks to ski. Although our family spends time in the Adirondacks, it is always in the Summer or Fall. We have done a lot of hiking, biking, kayaking, and sightseeing. But I have never skied there.
So off on an adventure we went. We had searched online for a few days for cross-country skiing trails in the ADK. We came upon Lapland Nordic Ski Center and decided to give it a try. It’s trail map and description of the groomed trails lured us in.
After a good breakfast, we headed North on the almost 2.5 hour trip to get to Lapland. Kind of crazy to spend about 5 hours driving to go skiing. But it was so worth it. We arrived around Noon shortly after the GPS lead us down a back road with a closed bridge. We quickly re-routed and arrived a few minutes later.
We could tell by the number of cars in the parking lot that it must be a good place. There were probably 30 cars, which for this remote area is quite a few. It is pretty much in the middle of nowhere.
The trails here were designed and created by an ex-Olympic skier of Finnish descent from the 1960 Olympics in Squaw Valley. It was founded in 1978 and along with his wife they ran the ski center for 36 years. He retired and sold Lapland in 2014. He is 91 years old today.
The name Lapland is a Finnish reference. According to Google, Lapland is Finland’s northernmost region, a sparsely populated area bordering Sweden, Norway, Russia and the Baltic Sea. It’s known for its vast subarctic wilderness, ski resorts and natural phenomena including the midnight sun and the Northern Lights.
A Wonderful Day of Skiing
We purchased our day passes and with trail map in hand, headed out for some adventure and fun. There are trails on both sides of the road. On the side with the lodge, most trails are expert level. We had less challenging trails in mind, at least in terms of downhill runs. My son and and I are intermediate skiers but certainly not expert level, which involves telemarking techniques to navigate turns going downhill.
So we headed across the road, put on our skis, and started out on the Lake Trail. As soon as we were on the trail we knew this going to be fun. The trails are expertly groomed, track set on the sides and packed and smoothed down the middle. So you can follow the tracks (classic style)or use the middle for skate skiing. Even though we do not know how to skate ski, we alternated between the tracks and center area throughout the day.
As the trail name indicates, we followed the Lake trail to the lake and then skied across the lake. That was a wonderful experience as we have never skied on a lake. They even groom a trail on the lake. A very unique experience. The Lake trail is even lighted for night skiing.
The temperature was in the low 20s which made for great conditions. Beautiful packed powder. Maximum gliding. Even though it was cold, skiing keeps you warm from the exertion it requires and I often zip down my coat and the cold winter wind feels like air conditioning. Again a unique experience.
We then did 3 more trails, 2 were marked “Easy” and one was “Intermediate”. The intermediate one had a few hills with turns but we were able to navigate them without too much trouble. Overall we skied 3 hours for a total of 4.7 miles.
After resting and snacking in the lodge, we decided against skiing another trail as it was nearing 4 PM and we still had the drive home. Plus we were tired. It was a fun day for sure skiing on the groomed trails and spending time with my son was the icing on the cake.
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