Perhaps it’s the fresh-baked cookie that’s offered to guests as they check into the Mirror Lake Inn, the village’s crown jewel of lodging. Or perhaps it’s how just about every quaint store and restaurant in town has some sort of reminder that miracles can, and have, happened there.
Either way, it doesn’t take long upon arriving in Lake Placid to realize there’s something unique about the place.
Lights decorate the Mirror Lake Inn in Lake Placid, N.Y.Known for decades as a winter wonderland and where the U.S. Olympic hockey team stunned the unbeatable Russians in 1980 in perhaps the most-celebrated sporting event ever, Lake Placid is not just for snowy fun anymore. The vacation haven in the Adirondack Mountains is a town for all seasons now, though the sights this time of year are nothing short of Rockwellian.
“It’s the place you never really think about coming to, and then you get here and you never want to leave,” says Scott Natter, a vacationer from Philadelphia who was touring the Olympic Center — the arena where the 1980 Miracle On Ice happened — with two of his children on a recent snowy day. “For us, it’s an annual thing now. We say ‘vacation’ and our kids say ‘Placid.'”
If You Go
Lake Placid: Located in northern New York, about 290 miles from New York City. lakeplacid.com. Dining: The Breakfast Club Etc., 2490 Main St., facebook.com/thebreakfastclubetc. Two words: bacon waffle. Smoke Signals, 2489 Main St., smokesignalsq.com. Stop by the bar for a Manhattan, try the Flatliner. Taste Bistro, 77 Mirror Lake Drive, mirrorlakeinn.com/dining/taste-bistro-bar. Mussels appetizer is entree-sized. Lodging: Golden Arrow Lakeside Resort, golden-arrow.com. In the center of town. Mirror Lake Inn, mirrorlakeinn.com. Continually rated one of the country’s best resorts. Art Devlin’s Olympic Motor Inn, artdevlins.com/index.html. Adjacent to the Olympic skating oval and Olympic center.