Keene.

Keene is the village you drive through to get to the trailheads, and then — if you have any sense — the village you stop in. It sits in the valley below the Cascade Lakes, ten miles east of Lake Placid by Route 73, and it is the working trailhead-density capital of the Adirondacks. The Adirondak Loj, Roostercomb, the Garden parking lot for the Great Range, the Ausable Club at St. Huberts: all within a twenty-minute drive. More 46ers start their climbs from inside this region than from anywhere else in the Park.

It is also smaller and quieter than Lake Placid in ways that matter. Keene Valley has been a destination for climbers — meaning the kind of person who reads Yvon Chouinard for fun — since the late nineteenth century, when J. M. Hopper and the Trudeau-era guides started leading parties up Mount Marcy. The climbing-school culture is still here. The Mountaineer in Keene Valley is the equipment shop most Adirondack climbers stop in before any serious objective. The Noonmark Diner is where they eat afterward.

Lake Placid puts on the Olympic show; Keene runs the trailheads. Visitors who want the polished resort experience go ten miles west; visitors who came to climb park here and walk into the woods.