I’m a lifelong Lake George enthusiast. Specifically, a lifelong Lake George Narrows camping enthusiast.
Travel
Island Getaway
Walk on water to Valcour, where history and natural beauty are the main attractions Is it safe? It’s a rational question. The thought of stepping out onto a vast expanse of ice, which not long ago was an inland sea of liquid water—really deep, really cold...
Romancing the Park
If snuggling with your sweetheart by a crackling fireplace after a day of cavorting in the snow sounds like just your cup of cocoa, the Adirondacks can make your Rom-Com daydreams come true.
Becks Tavern
“We wanted a ski cabin but we bought a hotel,” said Matt Parobeck, 45, who owns Becks Tavern and Gore Mountain Lodge with his older brother, Mark, and younger brother, Douglas, all avid downhillers and devotees of Gore.
Adi-rookie
I admit it was a bit of an ambush. “Make a loon call,” I commanded my friend Maria, shoving my phone up to her mouth and pressing record.
The Long View
Growing up among the woods and waters of Long Lake, the Hosley brothers’ heads always swirled with notions of worldly adventures. With locally famous parents—Lorrie and John Hosley, owners of Hoss’s Country Corner—who were unafraid of a bit of rolled-sleeves derring-do, the boys were steeped in a kind of fearlessness. Now men who have indeed been around the world, Matt and Nate Hosley have decided to dial it down a notch, reconnect with their roots and return home to raise families, care for aging parents and pump new life into the century-old Long View Lodge just outside of Long Lake.
Your Essential Vacation Guide
The choices for outdoor recreation are endless in the Adirondack Park. For just a taste of what the region has to offer, try one of these adventures:
At 3,156 feet, Hopkins Mountain, in Keene, is in the elevation sweet spot—a challenging hike but too low for patch-seeking 46ers. With views of the Great Range and surrounding peaks, you’ll want to linger at the top. And because the round trip is only 5.4 miles, there’s no need to hurry.
Great Pines
This 14-acre spread perched on Fourth Lake between Old Forge and Inlet has been welcoming guests since 1896—first as Camp Onondaga, then as various iterations of the North Woods Inn. It had been well loved and well worn by the time Britta and Devlin Hennessy, along with their partner Keir Weimer, bought it in 2015.
Lapland Lake
In Fall 2013, my boyfriend, Keith, and I arrived at Lapland Lake Nordic Vacation Center in the southern Adirondacks for the first time. We were greeted by a black-and-white cat, Little Bit, as well as Kiva, a Karelian bear dog, who bounded onto the scene, his tail wagging. Along with our welcoming party, the bright foliage, the rushing stream in the background, and the smell of pine signaled that we were home.
Then again, Keith and I both knew Lapland would be “our place” before we ever left our apartment in Brooklyn. After combing through lists of places to stay in the Adirondacks, we surprised each other by both picking this resort in Benson, about nine miles from the village of Northville. For Keith it was the description: spring-fed non-motorized mountain lake, miles of forest trails, little housekeeping cottages—or “tupas,” as they’re called in Finnish—and most important, peace and quiet.
Home in the Woods
Big Moose Lake was nowhere near the path of totality for the Great American Eclipse. But the group that gathered at the Waldheim during 2017’s touchstone event surely wouldn’t have traded places with any of the milling crowds trailing from Oregon to South Carolina. They had their own natural wonder to enjoy: a sparkly August day with just the wisp of a breeze from an Adirondack lake. There was no ignoring the phenomenon that fascinated a nation, but this bunch opted to pass homemade devices from hand to hand rather than swap Instagram images in cyberspace. Along with a pair of those worth-their-weight-in-gold cardboard shades, they traded a soot-smeared piece of glass, a colander and—the crowd favorite—a Frosted Flakes cereal box conscripted as an indirect viewing contraption. It was the kind of low-tech, high-companionship moment that perfectly fits the spirit of this place.
Hotel Saranac
Lore has it there are ghosts at Hotel Saranac. But if you’re trying to get in touch with the past at the hotel, you don’t need a team of paranormal investigators. You just need to take the staircase to the second floor, climbing stone steps whose edges have been rounded over by countless footfalls, and head to the wood-trimmed telephone booths by the lobby bar. (Kids, ask your parents about telephone booths.)
There, hanging inside the defunct stalls, are dozens of index cards left by visitors who have shared their handwritten memories of the 91-year-old hotel since it reopened in January following a four-year, $35 million restoration:
“When I was a small boy I used to ride my tricycle through the arcade.”
“Used to stay here back around 1945 to perhaps 1948. Dad used to call on laundries here, and my mother and I came up for our vacation.”
“When I was in high school, we used to come here after school, play in the elevators + explore. Sshh … don’t tell anyone!”
The Roedel Companies, a New Hampshire–based hotel firm whose founders have ties to Saranac Lake going back more than a century, spent twice its original budget and two years longer than planned on the project. Viewed purely in business terms, there are easier ways to open a hotel. But Fred Roedel III, the company’s chief financial officer, acknowledged that reopening the hotel means a lot more to Saranac Lake than just putting 82 rooms downtown. The hotel isn’t just an economic anchor to this village of 5,300—it’s a community one, too.
Salt of the Earth
Ask any chef the most essential weapon in their culinary arsenal and they’ll likely mention salt. Though rarely the star ingredient, it has the power to make or break a dish.
When Andrea Lautenschuetz chose Salt of the Earth as the name of her Lake Placid restaurant, which opened last March in a renovated house on Sentinel Avenue, it was partly in tribute to that workhorse of the spice rack. But it was also representative of the Buffalo native’s blue-collar background—her father was an electrician, her mother taught typing—and her conviction that good food shouldn’t be reserved for the elite.
On Sale Now
October 2026
Lost hikers, splintered bones and wildfires—a forest ranger reflects on more than two decades of coming to the rescue. Plus the oldest tavern in the Adirondacks, a trip through James Bond’s Lake George, and new energy in Schroon Lake.
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