Posts Tagged ‘ORDA’

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Turning water into snow

Skiiers at the Mount Van Hoevenberg complex. Explorer file photo by Mike Lynch

The state Olympic Regional Development Authority seeks a permit to withdraw up to 235,000 gallons of water per day from wells and a brook at Mount Van Hoevenberg to primarily bolster snowmaking at the bobsled and cross country skiing venue.

The permit application comes after the state funded a series of major upgrades at the site, including a new visitors lodge, improved trails and modernized snowmaking equipment. A new 3.5 million gallon reservoir can hold the water needed to make snow at the site. The upgrades also aim to attract international competitions to the venue like the World University Games slated for this winter.

» Continue Reading.


Friday, July 8, 2022

It’s debatable: Whiteface redesigns

ski patrol on whiteface courtesy whiteface orda

Editor’s note: This first appeared in the May/June 2022 issue of Adirondack Explorer magazine. In this regular column, we invite organizations and/or individuals to address a particular issue. Click here to subscribe to the magazine, available in both print and digital formats: www.adirondackexplorer.org/subscribe.

The question: Should ORDA reshape Whiteface?

» Continue Reading.


Wednesday, June 30, 2021

New facilities unveiled at Olympic Day celebration

Olympic DayPaul Smith’s College is an Official Sport and Education Training Center for US Biathlon and USA Nordic. The relationships have produced over 20 new enrollees in those sports at the college this fall. These student/athletes will be able to train on the Nordic trails virtually outside their dormitories.

This photo was taken at Mount Van Hoevenberg’s new refrigerated indoor push track for bobsled and skeleton, and was one of the many new facilities that were unveiled during ORDA’s Olympic Day celebration in Lake Placid on Thursday, June 24. Other highlights included the new refrigerated start facility at USA Luge and a new biathlon range.

» Continue Reading.


Friday, June 18, 2021

NYS legislative session: It’s a wrap

boat inspectionsThe state legislative session is over. What a weird, hybrid year of remote meetings and some in-person, masked meetings. The Capitol remained closed to the public, but more lobbyists held press conferences outside these last few months. Some of my colleagues continued to work out of the Legislative Correspondents Association offices in the Capitol while others, such as myself, worked from home. Everyone adapts.

Now that the whirlwind is over, though, we can reflect on what was done and what wasn’t. In the last flurry of bills this week, lawmakers made an aquatic invasive species inspection law permanent for the Adirondack Park. The bill also gave more authority to the state Department of Environmental Conservation do require these inspections and boat washes. The bill received unanimous support in both houses–a perhaps rare example of an Adirondacks issue that rallied bipartisan support, environmental groups’ support and local governments’ support. Now the governor has to sign off and make it official.

» Continue Reading.


Sunday, February 2, 2020

Major Snowboardcross and Skicross Event At Gore

NORAM Holeshot TourGore Mountain is one of two US stops and the only East Coast venue to host the US Ski & Snowboard NorAm 2020 Hole Shot and Revolution Tour Monday-Friday, February 3-7.

The Hole Shot Tour is an FIS NorAm competition designed to bridge the gap between grassroots and World Cup level athletes of Snowboardcross (ages 15+) and Skicross (ages 16+). Hundreds of top athletes from across the country and around the world are expected to compete. » Continue Reading.


Friday, January 31, 2020

Para-Bobsleigh World Cup Returning to Lake Placid

IBSF World Cup Bobsled & Skeleton 2016The 10-race para-bobsleigh World Cup series is set to kick off its North American swing when Lake Placid plays host to more than 24 athletes from 14 nations, on Thursday and Friday, February 6-7.

The 2019-2020 series began, in early-December, in Lillehammer, Norway and has traveled through Oberhof, Germany and St. Moritz, Switzerland before returning to the famed Mt. Van Hoevenberg Olympic Sports Complex Track. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, December 12, 2019

Bobsled & Skeleton World Cup Returning to Mt. Van Ho

IBSF World Cup Bobsled & Skeleton 2016Jacqueline Lölling (GER, women’s skeleton), Kaillie Humphries (USA, 2-woman bobsleigh), Axel Jungk (GER, men’s skeleton) and Johannes Lochner and Francesco Friedrich (GER, 2-man bobsleigh) have won the first races in the 2019/2020 BMW IBSF World Cup season.

They will all be reappearing at the second World Cup race of the winter on the ice in Lake Placid. The only change is that the male bobsleigh athletes will be switching to the larger sleighs: After two 2-man bobsleigh races were held at the season opener, two 4-man bobsleigh races are scheduled for the second weekend. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, November 27, 2019

World Cup Luge Comes to Lake Placid

2015 luge world cupNew York Olympic Regional Development Authority and USA Luge are set welcome Thanksgiving holiday visitors at Mount Van Hoevenberg this weekend as World Cup luge racing makes its annual visit to Lake Placid.

Most of the Olympic medalists from the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang will be in the field for the second stop on the Viessmann World Cup tour. The circuit opened last weekend in Innsbruck/Igls, Austria. » Continue Reading.


Friday, October 18, 2019

Lake Placid Sliding Track Opens, Events Set

IBSF World Cup Bobsled & Skeleton 2016The New York State Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA) has opened the combined bobsled, luge and skeleton track at the Olympic Sports Complex for U.S. national team training.

Workers have been working to chill the concrete and lay the ice on the 20-curve, mile-long chute on Mt. Van Hoevenberg, just five miles east from the two-time Winter Olympic village. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, September 26, 2019

How Gore Mountain Got The Name On Its New Logo

Gore Mountain Ski Area Map With Gore It IS Named After (Courtesy Adirondack Atlas)When the earliest Adirondack maps were drawn, Gore Mountain’s true summit could not be clearly identified. As colonial surveyor Verplanck Colvin put it “the highest point always seemed to disappear in the intricate group of peaks of which the mountain was composed.”

As the area around the mountain was increasingly surveyed, a “gore” developed between two large tracts of land, Hyde’s Patent, and the southeast line of  the Totten & Crossfield Purchase.  It was in or near this gore –  a surveyor’s term indicating an unmapped triangular or tapered area between two surveyed areas that does not connect (or close) along a common line – that the mountain sat. » Continue Reading.


Friday, September 6, 2019

New Hiker Shuttle Service At Lake Placid Region Trails

Bear Den Mountain Autumn is one of the busiest times of year in the Adirondack Mountains. Families and guests visit the region from throughout the Northeast and around the world to enjoy the fall foliage.

In anticipation of what is expected to be an unprecedented visitor-ship to the Adirondack High Peaks now through Columbus Day, a new free shuttle service is offering to take hikers to six nearby family-friendly hiking trails. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Whiteface Lake Placid 2019-20 Autumn, Winter Events

whiteface mtnThe New York State Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA) has announced the 2019-2020 Whiteface Lake Placid fall/winter calendar. Dates and schedules are subject to change.

Scheduled major events include: » Continue Reading.


Monday, July 29, 2019

Forever Wild, ORDA and Adirondack Legal History

There are more than three million acres of Forest Preserve in the Adirondack and Catskill Parks today. Yet, the most consequential New York State Court decision restricting the ways we can develop and use the “forever wild” Preserve was all about a few acres of land below Mt. Van Hoevenberg, close to Lake Placid.

There, in 1929, the state planned a “bobsleigh run or slide on state lands in the forest preserve.” About 2500 trees would need cutting to create the bobsled course for the 1932 Olympics. The lower court, the Appellate Division, Third Department, ruled that this activity was unconstitutional on grounds that this was wild forest and therefore must be preserved in its wild state, stating that “we must preserve it in its wild nature, its trees, its rocks, its streams. It must always retain the character of a wilderness.” » Continue Reading.


Thursday, July 25, 2019

Zipline, Chairlift Rides Added At Gore Mountain

Gore Mountain zip lineGore Mountain is open Thursday-Sunday for summer fun, and has two new activities for guests to enjoy. A new zipline ride offers up to two people at a time an opportunity to soar for about 300′ over the Base Area.

Also, open-air chairlift rides aboard the high-speed Adirondack Express will alternate with the traditional Northwoods Gondola rides to provide another option for taking in the views and accessing a variety of hiking and mountain biking terrain. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Adirondack Council’s APA Meeting Report

adirondack council new logoThe Adirondack Council has reviewed the agenda for the upcoming May Adirondack Park Agency Board meeting and has made the following comments to the Park Agency: » Continue Reading.



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