They Call It Lake Turbulent Now

Sep 01, 2013 by Danny in Concert

Road To The Top Of Whiteface Mountain

One of these days I’m going to grow a big lumberjack beard, replace all of my shirts with flannel ones (at least those that aren’t flannel already), procure a chocolate lab, build myself a cabin in the mountains overlooking a lake and be the craziest old recluse this side of the loony bin. That is of course assuming I can get high speed internet access. Yes siree, I do love me a mountain. But until that wondrous day, I’ll just have to settle for an occasional visit to places like Lake Placid to keep the dream alive.

The great thing about Lake Placid is that it’s a relatively short drive from my house, which sure beats the four loooong days of driving it took us to get to Banff. Of course the Adirondacks are no Rocky Mountains, but they have their own charm. Since the drive was so short we had plenty of time left in the day to do some exploring.

I guess it’s due to my constant blathering about lighting conditions, clouds, shade, the angle of the sun f-stops and such, but my wife has become quite good at knowing when and where I want to shoot. When we arrived in Lake Placid, we checked into the hotel and had a quick look at the list of things we wanted to do in the area. Right away, Susan says to me “Well, we were going to drive up Whiteface sometime and the clouds are really nice right now so we should do that today, so you can take pictures.” At first I said “no”, since we had been driving for hours, but I was easily convinced.

View From The Parking Lot!

After a windy and bumpy drive up the mountain, we arrived at the parking lot just outside a castle at the foot of the walk to the summit. Somehow I didn’t get much of a shot of the castle from the outside, probably because I was too focused on getting this shot looking out of one of the windows and there were so many people standing around. I remember overhearing the conversation between the people next to me who were trying to take a similar photo, and were complaining that the window was just all white and the person was just a silhouette. I also knew that there is no way a single exposure would capture the range of light, so I bracketed the photos and created this HDR image. That is of course in between jokes about Rusty and Jerome sticking their heads in the window for a chat.

View From The Castle Window

So off we went on our ascent to the peak of Whiteface mountain. The walk up looked quite daunting, but it really wasn’t too bad. We stopped to take some pictures and have a dance party or two along the way.

That’s A Long Way Up

Only 257 More To Go

East lake, West lake, Mirror Lake and Lake Placid

Many, Many Stairs

It Wouldn’t Be A Hike Without An Impromptu Dance Party

Whiteface Summit Dance Party

Weather Station

Another View Of The Lakes

Resting At The Summit

At the summit, we took a well deserved break to take in the view, take some photos, and do our best to keep our son from falling off the cliff to a horrible death. That boy has no fear, except for the time I made ghost sounds behind him while he was walking up the stairs from the basement in the dark. I’m already starting to regret that one. I took my favourite three images from the summit and created this triptych, which I really should print for my wall.

The Amazing Views From The Top

To get back down from the summit, we took the elevator. I know what you’re thinking, but where’s the fun in taking the elevator up? It was pretty interesting that they put a hole down through the mountain and built a tunnel to access it so that they could get people in wheelchairs and such up there. Of course there was quite an echo in the tunnel, so there may have been some hootin’ and holerin’. And it was cold in that tunnel which felt great after all that walking under the hot sun.

Tunnel Back To The Parking Lot

To top off the first day, we headed over to downtown for some grub (we picked the wroooong restaurant though). After we ate we came across this awesome concert that was happening so we stopped to listen to a few tunes before heading back to the hotel. This is the first time I’ve ever seen anyone go to a concert in a canoe. How awesome is that?

Music On Mirror Lake

Given ‘Er

Best Seats In The House… Well On The Lake Anyway

On day two we headed over to High Falls Gorge first thing in the morning. I just love waterfalls, and I look for them in any town I visit. Usually the “waterfall” is either dried up for the season (yeah I’m looking at you Hawaii) or is really just a little trickle of water over a couple of stones. But High Falls did not disappoint. Trying to get a long exposure of the falls while people were crossing the bridge was a challenge however. But I managed to grab a few shots before the real crowds caught up with us. Why is it that as soon as we notice that there is a little flex in a bridge we have to jump on it to see just how much flex it has? I suppose every bridge is different, but one thing is for sure: It’s too much flex for me to take a long exposure picture of a waterfall!

Looks Like A Fun Waterslide

High Falls Gorge

It Was Pretty Cool!

We love to hike, so that afternoon we looked for a hike that we could all handle and landed on the Mt Jo trail in the High Peaks. The trail is almost 6 km so we were a little worried about taking along a four year old, especially when we saw the terrain. But he loved it, and danced his way up the mountain with gusto. Perhaps a little too much gusto, which caught up to him near the end. But it was well worth it, there were some amazing views at the top. It was a pretty sketchy climb up over the rocks, so we decided to take the alternate route back down. It turns out our worries were for nothing, since we finished the hike in just under the time estimated for an “experienced hiker”. Not bad for a four year old! We were all beat after that, but nothing that a popsicle from the store couldn’t fix.

Starting The Ascent Of Mt. Jo

Hiking Dance Party!

Let’s Just Rest In The Shade

You Do Know We Have To Go Back Down This Right?

View From The Top Of Mt. Jo

Living On The Edge

After that hike we were tired and hungry. So we headed back to downtown for some food at a much nicer restaurant and some more touristy shenanigans. However our fun was cut a little short by an incoming storm. We were going to head back to the hotel, but when I saw the clouds rolling in, I knew I had to get out of town to where we could get a view of the mountains. So we loaded in the car and took the short drive just outside of town.

He’s Never Earned A Popsicle As Much As He Did This One

You Might Be A Tourist When…

Now, if you’ve ever been on vacation with your family and wanted to pull the car over with the intention of sitting on the side of the highway and taking pictures of storm clouds for an hour, then you’ll know that it takes about two minutes before somebody has to go to the bathroom. So I was faced with a dilemma. Should I get back in the car and drive back to town to get my son to a bathroom, or take the chance that it was a false alarm? What’s a photographer to do…

Well, in this case, I did the only thing a responsible parent who is also a photographer could do. I handed the keys to my wife and told her to take my son and come back for me whenever she could. Just then another car pulls up and a young chap gets out with a camera in his hand, gives me a quick nod, and starts taking pictures as well. At least I wouldn’t be alone out here. When my wife pulled the car away, my new friend looked at me strangely, then curiously watched my ride leave me on the side of the highway. He then proceeded to get back in his car and and leave me there alone. Some friend. I guess a friendly nod means nothing these days. So there I was with my camera pointed at the sky sitting on the side of the highway alone in the imminent rain, confident that I had made the right choice and that I was going to get some amazing photos of that storm. That is until the rain started.

At that point I was less confident in my hopes to get great pictures and a little more confident that one of the cars that slowed down to watch me was either going to steal my camera gear or throw me in their pick-up truck and take me back to their cabin in the woods (and not the nice kind inhabited by some flannel wearing crazy dude with a lumberjack beard).

But as is often the case, it all worked out. I got some photos that I was happy with, the rain held off to a mild drizzle and my wife came back to pick me up after tracking down some facilities for my son.

Storm Over Lake Placid Winter Games Ski Jump Site

Long Exposure Of Storm Over Mountain

Sunset Through The Storm

Large Storm Cloud Forming

After all that excitement, we got up the next day and got out of dodge (or Lake Placid in this case). We headed for The Enchanted Forest Water Safari, to have some fun at the water park. As I recall, it was hot enough to split the rocks that day. So although the water slides were refreshing, walking around on the concrete and pavement in our bare feet was incredibly uncomfortable. At first Hayden was hesitant about the water slides, but after going down once he was hooked and was dragging us from slide to slide as fast as he could. What fun.

Then we drove home.

End communication.