Things to Do in Lake Placid, New York

The museum inside the Olympic Center on Main Street holds North America’s second-largest collection of Winter Olympic artifacts. The same building houses the 1980 arena where the Miracle on Ice was played, and guided Olympic Center tours are led by local historians.

★ Good to know The museum is closed Mondays; public skating sessions in the Olympic Center are listed on the Legacy Sites calendar.

The Olympic bobsled run here is one of only 16 in the Western Hemisphere, and the original run is on the National Register of Historic Places. You can ride the Cliffside Coaster alongside the 1980 track, take the one-hour Legacy Tour of the venue’s Olympic past, or climb at the Hi Notch indoor wall.

★ Good to know The coaster and tour don’t run every day, so check the Legacy Sites calendar before you drive out.

At 4,867 feet, Whiteface is the only High Peak with a road to the top. The Veterans’ Memorial Highway climbs more than 2,300 feet in five miles, and the Cloudsplitter Gondola runs to Little Whiteface. In winter it has the biggest vertical drop in eastern North America, 3,430 feet.

★ Good to know It’s in Wilmington, about 13 miles from the village; the highway and gondola are seasonal and weather-dependent.

This is one of the four Lake Placid Legacy Sites still in use from the Olympic years. Its Sky Flyer zipline is built to mimic the feeling of a ski jump.

★ Good to know The zipline runs on a Friday-to-Monday schedule in season, so plan around it.

The abolitionist John Brown bought land in North Elba in the 1850s, and after Harpers Ferry he was buried in front of his farmhouse on December 8, 1859. Several of his followers were reburied beside him in 1899. The house, barn exhibits and trails sit just outside the village.

★ Good to know House admission is free; tours run on the hour May through October, and the grounds are open dawn to dusk year-round.

Mirror Lake sits between downtown and the lake the village is named for, with Main Street running along its shore. Ironman Lake Placid, held here every July since 1999, fills the village in summer, and in February a pond hockey tournament is played on Mirror Lake’s ice.

★ Good to know Ironman weekend in late July closes roads and fills lodging, so check the race date before you book.

The former Lake Placid Center for the Arts has presented shows since 1972 in a 355-seat theatre. It runs two galleries, classes, and Met Opera and movie-musical screenings.

★ Good to know The theatre building is under renovation, but programming continues around the campus; check the calendar for venues.