Hey all,

I'll be taking a week off from work to do a tour in the Adirondacks coming up next week. More precisely, I'll be out for 5 nights and 6 days, starting from Burlington, VT area and ending in Middlebury, VT area. I don't have any rigid plans yet so I thought I'd reach out the BF community for experiences and/or advice on touring in this area. If it helps, I plan on camping for all 5 nights. I am an experienced backpacker and have all the necessary gear for cold weather camping, so I am primarily looking for advice on the following:

Suggested roads? Places to camp? Towns/areas that are a must see? Your highlights from a similar trip? Anything else?

I know there is an adventure cycling route for this area, so I'm guessing there are people here that have some experience touring in the ADK. Any advice and/or beta would be much appreciated!! Thanks all!

https://www.adventurecycling.org/cyc...loop-we-print/

Thanks for the link. As I mentioned in the OP, I am familiar with the Adventure Cycling route in this area. You actually posted the Green Mountains Loop, which is near the Adirondacks, but the Adirondack Park Loop is closer to the trip I was thinking of. If you have any personal recommendations or highlights from your trip in that area, I'd love to hear them!

We’ll heads up that the only NY State DEC campground open after 10/9 is Fish Creek, NW of Saranac Lake (till 10/22). The DEC (Dept. of Enviromental Conservation) runs all 43 of the state public campgrounds in the Adirondack Park.

https://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/7825.html

When closed, they shut off all water. I’ve no clue if they allow stealth camping - I.E. putting down a tent, no fee etc... as I’m pretty sure there are no attendants and the toilets are all privys. You can call and ask. I think possibly the Forked Lake sites might be open (south of Long Lake), as folks doing the Fulton Chain canoe route use the sites there. There are 3 or 4 sites at Forked that are right at the dock area. So road accessable.

Outside of the DEC public campgrounds, the towns run some. Possibly some county sites as well. There’s also a huge amount of primitive campsites scattered throughout the “Forest Preserve”, used typically by hikers and canoe trips, just not many that are on paved roads (none that I’m aware of), or easily accessable. There are a few along the Floodwood dirt road west of Saranac Inn, as well as down in the Essex Chain on some on the bikeable dirt roads south of Newcomb. There’s also a ton of free sites in the Moose Plains region, south west of Indian Lake.

Note that it’s currenly hunting season so many of the primitive sites might get used up. It’s all first come, etc...

Maybe some private campgrounds, there’s a ton of those.

Thanks, that's some great beta. I was actually really curious if I'd be able to stealth camp at the closed state sites since it seems like they are pretty abundant in the area. I'll have to give them a call this week to inquire. I was also thinking that it might be fairly easy (while in the park) to find primitive or stealth sites off of the main roads. I'll be on my touring bike that I've done some long trips on Alaskan dirt roads, so I'm not averse to heading down some dirt roads to find decent places to camp.

Thanks!

There a couple of Trails Illustrated Maps from Nat Geo that well describes the dirt road systems in the Dak’s. There’s a digital version that might be useful.

In my research of the areas NW of Saranac Lake, west of Tupper Lake, east of Long Lake and the Moose River Plains, with an eye towards bikeable dirt roads, I noticed there are a lot of road side primitive campsites scattered in these areas. Fire ring, privy, picnic table is typical. Some of these roads are thru routes, so possible to plan a trip with dirt roads as part of the route. All primitive sites are first come, first serve, so possibly a weekend might be busy.

It would be great if the DEC allowed off-season camping at the closed public campgrounds, as does Vermont. Knowing NY State, they likely do not, but a call will tell you.

It depends on how much ground you want to cover. Assuming you take the ferry out of Burlington, you have plenty of decent choices of routes if you keep Lake Placid as the westernmost turnaround. Once you go west of Lake Placid, your committing to a much larger loop (not counting doubling back).

I've done multiple tours in the area, but never camped or spent a night in the area you reference (within the Ticonderoga, Lake Placid, Plattsburgh triangle.

OTOH - if you're looking for a larger loop you can start out north crossing the lake just south of the Canadian border, then working south and west. You can make a loop west to Saranac Lake, then a return through Lake Placid, and work south to cross back to VT.

IME, I found the riding south and east of Lake Placid nicer than to it's west, and would bend the trip southward to Ticonderog or even farther south then swinging back into VT.

I suspect hat you're behind the curve and it may be cold, but t least the roads will be much clearer of tourist traffic than during the summer.

Just keep in mind that road choices ( and all other choices in the off season) can be limited once you're more than a few miles west of lake Champlain.

FB has some good comments.

If not staying in or east of the I87 corridor, you kind of end up over in the Lake Placid area, or come down to Saranac Lake on Rt 3. If desiring to loop west and south it’s really only Rt.s 30, 28 and/or 28N. No N/S stuff till Rt 9 and nothing west of the Saranac Lake/Tupper Lake/Long Lake corridor.

Also factor in elevation and temperature. Lake Placid, Saranac Lake, Tupper Lake and Long Lake are all at 1500ft. elevation so will be considerably cooler then a Lake Champlain Valley loop.

Which would be my choice, down the west side of Champlain, back up thru Vermont (who’s campgrounds can be used when closed).

Unless your heart is set on the Dak’s.

Thanks for that. However, I think there's beautiful cycling, with plenty of options east and south Of Lake Placid, which is why I'd make it my western limit. From lake Placid, there's one road south east through Keene, then the OP can stay west in the foothills toward Lake George, or continue southeast towards Ticonderoga and points south, and loping back into VT.

As I said, I happen to really like the NYS side of the lake all the way to Whitehall, from where the VT side is equally nice.

Yes, that’s what I meant by the I87 corridor.

To the OP, what we are talking about essentially, is Rt 73, which runs SE from LP to Rt 9 and I87.

The road infrastructure east of I87 is greater then west, especially in the central Dak’s, where there’s no real N/S route except what I described as the Saranac to Long Lake corridor.

One issue is once committed to the Rt30/28 area, if weather becomes problematic, it’s a schlep over to Lake Champlain and home. Staying east as FB has described gets you options to cross the lake and head north back to Burlington, as there are ferry (as you are probably aware) options.

I would also comment that the area FB describes and I call the Lake Champlain valley, is arguably more scenic then the central Dak’s. Certainly more views of the lake, the Green Mt’s, the ADK High Peaks. One thing about the Rt 30/28 area is it’s 20 miles typically between towns, all being forest, so a LOT of trees to look at, sometimes some high peak views (Tupper Lake area), but a lot of empty.

Thanks for all of the useful info [MENTION=94341]Steve B.[/MENTION] and [MENTION=158672]FBinNY[/MENTION]

Considering the info that both of you have provided, I think that my best bet will be to head north from Burlington, cross Lake Champlain south of the Canadian border, and head south in NY past Lake Placid, looping back to Middlebury area at the southern end of the lake.

My heart is set on spending a decent amount of time in NY. I moved to Burlington about two years ago and have not made it over to the 'daks at all yet, and I've been itching to explore that area for awhile. I know this trip will only give me exposure to the eastern side, but hopefully in the future I'll get a chance to do a full loop around the western end or maybe a paddling trip over there.

I still need to work on mapping out mileage and such to figure out a more exact route. I'll be working on that in the next couple of days so I'll keep this thread posted. In the meantime, I'd love to hear some info from anyone else!

I'll also update this thread with what I find out from NY DEC about off-season use of their campsites, since this is something I have no been able to find any information about on the web.

Thanks again, exactly the beta I was looking for.

Stop in at the Winooski Bike, and tell David I (Francis in NY) sent you. He's a wealth of info about riding points north in that corner of VT.

Also, watch the temps. The lowlands in the Aderondaks are swampy and prone to fog in some conditions, and if the temps are near freezing, they get frozen fogs that can glaze a road. So you can be dropping down a hill and hit black ice a high speed. The only good thing is that it also helps the slide, so less road rash.

If the northern route doesn't pan out, don't give up. Take the ferry out of Burlington (if it's running), head to lake Placid, or straight to Keene, then do a long loop as far south as your legs allow. IMO, the riding along the eastern border in NYS, all the way down well south of I-90 is some of the best riding in the state. Plenty of uncrowded roads in rolling terrain. Then you can either cross into MA or go back to Whitehall and slide back into VT for the return leg.

That sounds like it could be really fun. It would tie in the eastern ADK but skip northern Lake Champlain (which I've already spent a decent amount of time exploring). Any general route recommendations along those lines?

The busiest NY roads on the west side of Champlain are Rt 22 and Rt 9. You can find local roads that parallel in most places, but somtimes need to just use the main road.

Do a search for NY designated bike routes for this area, Bike Rt 9 as example. Also note that there’s a bike path that runs from Lake George to Glens Falls, if you are down that way.

An option for camping if in Lake Placid, as BTW, is at the Adirondack Loj, on Heart Lake Rd. It’s 8 miles out of LP, but 4 miles south of Rt 73 if you are heading south tpwards Keene. The Loj has inexpensive lodging indoors, as well as lean-to’s open all year for camping, situated around Heart Lake.

I've taken the main roads (86 & 22n) between Lake Placid and the ferry landing, and they were OK. There's also a selection of unnumbered roads that swing north in an arc, then drop back to join 86 outside of Lake Placid.

I've ridden the full length of 22 (from NYC to the end) and find it fine most times, though I use it when I have miles to cover. South of Glens Falls is a fine mesh of local roads, so 22 would only make sense as a through road.

I've also ridden the full length of route 9 from NYC to Canada, and the only good thing I can say about it is that it gets you from here to there, and you can't get lost. There's an offshoot of 22 that splits off below Lake Champlain and heads up the VT side. It's a nice and gets you most of the way home without using route 7. 9n is also very rideable, 73 running southeast down through Keene Valley.

You'll have to pull out a map, and figure distances and destinations, but as a general rule, road choice is much more limited north of Glens Falls vs. below. However, be sure to move east above Glens Falls unless you want to loop Lake George in, because the traffic density increases materially between Glens Falls and Albany.

Actually a decent tout might be ferry to Lake Placid, down to the west side of Lake George, then east to clear the route 9 corridor, picking up smaller roads to points south, then back home via Whitehall, and 22a north through VT.

BTW search "NYS contour map" and after it loads you can bring up detail. It's give you a good sense of the lay of the land and what you can expect in terrain.

To chime in, I’ve ridden the west side of Lake George on Rt 9N, found it narrow, twisty, busy with bad sight distance. It’s the primary road for locals who have cabins on the lake to get to LG or Ticonderoga. Not recommended.

That must have been in the summer. It won't be busy this late in the season.