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Saturday, September 20, 2014

Owl's Head & Olympic Ski Jump

I'm still working my way through our camping trip to the Lake Placid area in early August, so this post will cover two activities: our hike up Owl's Head and our visit to the Olympic Ski Jump Complex.

I wasn't up for any major hiking (and my husband never is), so Owl's Head seemed ideal. The trail is 1.2 miles round trip and the summit provides lovely views of the surrounding High Peaks. Our first attempt was thwarted by giant road construction vehicles using the road to the trail head as a staging area. So we went back the next day and were able to squeeze past and find a spot to park. The trail is quite popular and we saw lots of other hikers, but we managed to have the summit all to ourselves. The hordes arrived just as we were heading down.




We've been meaning to make it to the Olympic Ski Jump Complex for the last couple years, but bad weather has caused us to put off our visit. Not this year. We got to watch some young ski jumpers jumping into swimming pools (crazy!). Then we rode the chair lift up to the base of the ski jump and then took the elevator to the top. It boggles my mind that real people intentionally propel themselves down those jumps. Good grief.




This will probably be the last of the posts from this trip, but is you haven't done so yet, you can also read about our visit to Ausable Chasm and our Ben & Jerry's Factory tour.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Exploring Ausable Chasm

While we were camping at Wilmington Notch State Campground, we spent a day at Ausable Chasm. We'd seen advertisements and flyers for the place for years and decided this would the summer we checked it out.

As we drove there through regular looking small towns and farm land, I was confused about where a chasm was going to fit into the landscape. The very idea was incongruous. And then as the signs indicated our near-arrival, a deep gorge opened up as if out of nowhere.

We elected to do a "float tour," which meant we'd have access to the walking trails and go for a short raft ride. It was pretty crowded, even though it was a weekday, so it was hard to get pictures without a bunch of strangers in the frame. And, of course, the pictures fail to capture the drama of the place that was felt in person.

We drove and walked over this bridge.

Elephant's Head

cairns

narrow gorge

rafts being lowered by cables to launch pad below
The raft trip was short (~1 mile long), but it was definitely my favorite part. I'm adding going rafting again to my must-do list.