Locations for Overnight Stays in the Whiteface and High Peaks Areas
Farm stays in the area are the backbone of any Adirondack vacation. The Emerson House, located on Asgaard Farm & Dairy, dates back to the 1930s and can be rented through Vrbo or Airbnb. Relax in comfort with a board of Asgaard's smooth chèvre and cellar-aged tomme, and enjoy the outdoors in the eating and grilling area or on the screened-in porch.
Sugar House Creamery offers farm lodgings in a quordle lofted carriage barn and a delightful private apartment next to the main farmhouse, both of which have individual balconies overlooking the mountain pastures where the farm's herd of Brown Swiss cows idly graze. In either case, the farm store at Sugar House is the place to go for fresh bread and cheese that has been matured in caves.
Located in a classic family-run motel, the Hungry Trout is a favorite local eatery. Hungry Trout Resort is conveniently located on the Ausable River's banks, so guests may go trout fishing or take a stroll along the river just outside their rooms. Dartbrook Lodge's beautiful mountain cabins go above and beyond to make you feel at home in the Adirondacks, with amenities like slate rain showers, gas wood stoves, and high-end Great Camp-style furnishings.
Saganaga Lake
Saranac Lake, only nine miles from Lake Placid (and less than an hour from the Whiteface region), is a beautiful alternative to the city's customary high pricing and hordes of visitors. Instead of an Olympic legacy, Saranac is known for its literary, artistic, and medical luminaries: Hungarian composer Béla Bartók wrote two concertos in a small Saranac cabin, Sylvia Plath wrote about the area in "In the Mountains" and "The Bell Jar," and Albert Einstein was a friendly presence around town (and on the lake) in the 1930s and 1940s.
Due to its cool alpine air and low humidity, Saranac became famous as a health resort for tuberculosis sufferers in the late 19th century. (If you find yourself in Saranac Lake on a rainy day, a visit to the Saranac Laboratory Museum, the first facility in the United States devoted to tuberculosis research and care, is a must.) You can visit the home where Scottish novelist and explorer Robert Louis Stevenson slept during the very frigid winter of the 1880s in Saranac.
You can do cross-country skiing on the Jackrabbit Trail, mountain biking or downhill skiing on Mount Pisgah, or canoeing through the Saint Regis Canoe Area, a network of wilderness lakes, ponds, and canoe routes that spans 18,400 acres. Experienced hikers can take on the "6er" hiking challenge by traversing the six Adirondack peaks that encircle the lake.