The Adirondack Rail Trail’s Lake Placid terminus is currently a dirt parking area next to the old train depot. But that’s about to change.
"Without further ado, let’s throw some dirt!"
"Today is an incredibly exciting day.” Adirondack Rail Trail Association Executive Director Julia Goren explains that this groundbreaking marks the start of the next phase of the trail.
“Now that the rail trail is built, and it was completed in October of last year, now it’s time to see the build out of the amenities, interpretive signs, all of the things that are coming. And this is the first place where that’s happening. It’s a huge success for OSI (Open Space Institute), for the village of Lake Placid and of course it’ll a huge boon for all of the rail trail riders.”
The Open Space Institute is building amenities at the Lake Placid trailhead that include a pavilion with picnic tables, a parking area with EV charging stations, restrooms, an information kiosk, bicycle racks and a bicycle repair station.
Open Space Institute Vice President for Parks and Stewardship Peter Karis told the crowd Thursday the organization became involved four years ago.
“This project started for us in 2022 with an inquiry from the New York State DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation) leading to a generous acquisition of this property from the Lake Placid-North Elba Historical Society to the village of Lake Placid. To date we’ve raised over $1.8 million for this effort including funding for the land purchase, trailhead planning and engineering and now construction, which is going to get started any day now.”
OSI President and CEO Erik Kulleseid says this trail, which runs 34 miles between Lake Placid and Tupper Lake, is one of about a dozen included in the Institute’s greenway program.
"This is actually a growing part of our mission is to capture these closed rail lines and turn them into these greenways. It’s just a very easy way to experience nature and the outdoors. It’s something that we’ve actually embraced very fully and with some big projects all across the East Coast. And just wait for what we’re talking about for the route from Saratoga to Tahawus."
The Rail Trail Association has installed trail counters, and Goren says the numbers indicate it’s a popular venue.
“From May 26 of 2025 to May 27 of 2026 our trail counters picked up 172,100 passes by the trail counters. That’s an undercount because our Tupper Lake trail counter only went up in November and our Saranac Lake trail counter was vandalized and we’re missing three months of data from that. So we know it’s more than that and there’s a lot of people using the trail.”
Kathleen and Gary Litchman of Massachusetts had pulled their bicycles off their vehicle and were putting on their helmets. It’s the first time the duo will explore the trail.
We’re camping and we were looking for a place that had a rail trail that we’ve never been on. And we’ve never been to the Adirondacks. So that’s why we chose this area, specifically for the trail. “
Gary Litchman adds, “It’s nice it’s 34 miles long each way so if you wanted to take in a 30 or 40 mile bike ride back and forth then we could always come back another day and start further down and do a totally different trail and do it again.”
Construction on the Lake Placid Trailhead project is expected to be completed this fall. Empire State Development provided a $300,000 grant to help support the $1.6 million project.
