Lake Placid / Whiteface & Jay Peak Pres Week

We decided kind of last minute to take the week off and do a mini ski safari. I knew we wanted to skip the crowds on Saturday and Sunday so we didn't drive to LP until Sunday afternoon. I'll post up some pictures over the weekend. In the meantime here's a synopsis of the trip for anyone thinking about doing something similar.

Lake Placid / WF Sunday afternoon - Thursday morning
We stayed at the new Hampton Inn next to the LP Pub and Brewery. Really nice hotel with free breakfast and a massive common area that looks out on the lake. They have a nice pool and an outdoor fire pit. I won't go too in depth on WF and Lake Placid since there are extensive TR's for the area on here, but IMO LP and WF are special places. Where else do you wake up and see dog sleds, ice skaters, pond hockey, cross country all out on a froze lake with gorgeous mountains all around? It was so cool to be there during the Olympics. It just feels different than any other ski town/mountain. Thanks to everyone for advice on things to do with the kids. We have to make another trip to hit some of the remaining attractions. Some highlights of the stay:

 - Seeing Ted Blazer in the "battle of the blades" portion of the ice show on Sunday night. Hilarious. Also seeing some of the local skating talent and Ashley Cain. She was amazing. Our girls really had a good time.

- Skiing WF on Monday and Wednesday. We skipped Tuesday as it was too windy. Highlight of the trip was hitting Hoyts, taking my 5 year old to the summit for the first time, and spending a couple hours with my three year old in the learning area. Conditions overall were fantastic and no crowds what so ever. I love the way WF has the kids learning area separate from the rest of the mountain. You don't have to worry about boneheads bombing it past you and its easy to find a decent place to park. A must start point during holiday "madness".

- Seeing and exploring the ice castle in Saranac. Girls had a great time there.

- Smoke Signals BBQ  - Delish and reasonable. Right on Mirror Lake. We liked it so much we went twice.

- BYOB happy hour at the Hampton Inn. Kids movies in one of the ballrooms at night.

- Being right next to the LP Pub and Brewery - although the hotel has really increased their business. You can get a pager and it works from the happy hour at the hotel.

Bundled for the Summit


High Peaks from the Summit


Whiteface learning area


Dogsled - fastest $20 you can spend other than the craps table


Saranac Lake Ice Castle


My favorite shirt from window shopping in LP


Mirror Lake x-country "track"



Jay Peak Thursday afternoon - Sunday
We drove to Jay on Thursday. In retrospect if I had it to do over we would have skied WF again and then done the drive up, but I really wanted to get to Jay and check it out. We ended up skiing the afternoon at Jay but could have done a full day at WF. We stayed in one of the new 1 bedroom clubhouse suites. It was our first time to Jay so I don't have previous trips to compare it to but we had a blast. Some highlights from the trip:

- Glade, glades, everywhere glades. Pretty much 80% of the mountain has skiable trees. It was fantastic. The amount and quality of natural snow in the trees was really noticeable (over 200 inches when we were there). Even with the warm up/freeze on Friday the snow in the trees stayed nice. The groomed trails on the tram side were surprisingly slick and windblown most of the time we were there. Other than hitting the tree runs over there we mostly stayed on stateside. The skiing overall lived up to the hype. Other than the tram the lines were less than 5 minutes the entire time we were there. We only rode the tram once on Thursday afternoon.

- Shuttle system. With all the new condos, hotels, etc. I wasn't sure how hard it would be to get around. We were staying above the golf/nordic clubhouse so we were not ski in ski out and in the cold not really walkable. The shuttles were constantly running. We never waited more than 5 minutes which is great when you have a 5 year old and a 3 year old. Our car didn't move until we checked out on Sunday.

- Free daycare. Yeah its free if you stay on property. We only used it for 2 half days but the facility was really nice (stateside). Did I mention free? Huge for families with young kids.

- Ski school. They are one of the few mountains I know of that will take a 3 year old for an all day lesson. We originally were going to make more use of the daycare, but our 3 year old liked skiing at WF so much we signed her up for two days of lessons. The facilities and instructors were great with a nice covered magic carpet right outside the building (stateside). They have big ramps and other teaching stuff inside too when the kiddos get cold.

- Great restaurants. We tried them all as you are pretty captive when staying at Jay. Not a bad meal. The only complaint I had was the burger on our last day at the tower bar was over cooked. Overall really, really good food and not too pricey. The provisions/general store was good too. Not too overpriced and has everything you need for snacks, breakfast stuff, etc.

- The water park was really icing on the cake. Kids loved it and the price was included with our lodging (we did lift tickets separate due to pass holder discount). The nicest thing was it was never very crowded. I half expected it to be mobbed and overrun since it was president's week but you would have never known. They have a giant TV in the middle of the park and had the Olympics on the entire time. Did I mention there is a giant bar that overlooks the waterpark? I know a lot of people scoff at a waterpark at a mountain but it is a game changer for families.

- Discounted lift tickets for pass holders from other mountains. You have to pay the  "full"discounted price ($55) the first day to get your RFID, but after that you can recharge online which was really cheap. I paid $116 for 3 days. Loved the RFID setup at the lifts too. So nice not having to wait for someone to scan you in every lift line.

- No upcharge on lodging during president's week. The rates are the same as other weeks in the winter. To me that is huge as most places charge significant holiday surcharges. The lodging is pretty heavily booked so if you wait till the last minute like me,  the trick is to check exactly 14 days prior to your desired arrival. That is when people can cancel without a fee and rooms become available. Online is the way to go as I was able to find a unit that a salesperson on the phone couldn't see as available.

- GREAT customer service. You can tell it is ingrained in everyone that works there from the shuttle drivers to the wait staff to the bus boys to the lifties you could just tell they focus on it. I can't tell you how many people asked if we were having a good time. It was refreshing and really noticeable.

Obligatory tram ride (we did it once)


Top of the tram


Stateside Learning center (one of the daycares is located here too)


Top of Stateside


Getting ready to drop into one of many glades


Waterpark


Waterpark


Waterpark waverider and big screen


Waterpark bar



We finished up our trip by stopping off at the american flatbread in burlington. Good eats and zero gravity conehead IPA. It was a good thing the wife drove the rest of the way home. The only real knock I could say against Jay is that they charge for kids 6 and under. $16 first day and then $11 a day after. Not a ton of money, but also not free like many places (Gore, Bell, WF). With the obvious focus on kids and families it was just a bit surprising.

It was a great trip. Can't wait to get back to both places.

Updated with a few pictures.....

nice!

Danzilla wrote

Danzilla wrote

Glade, glades, everywhere glades. Pretty much 80% of the mountain has skiable trees. It was fantastic.

I was blown away by the wide spacing of the trees at Jay.  I felt that I could ski almost anything because there was so much room to operate and no chance of hitting bottom.

Very nice pics.

And yes, the trees at Jay are awesome. Very well spaced, well maintained, and a ton of variety in pitch, challenge, etc.

I love mountains where I can get off the lift, jump into the trees, and not come out until I get to the lift. Smugg's is like that too.