Saranac Lake.

Saranac Lake is the village Robert Louis Stevenson came to in 1887 to recover from tuberculosis, and the village he wrote much of The Master of Ballantrae in. It is the village Mark Twain summered in. It is the village Béla Bartók composed in during his last summer in 1945. The cure cottages are still here — most of them now private homes. The Stevenson Cottage is a museum. The literary fact of the place is not a heritage tourism flourish; it is the reason the village exists in the form it does.

Today it is the working hub of the central High Peaks region — bigger than Lake Placid by population, less polished, with a real downtown that doesn't empty out in mud season. It sits at the south end of a chain of three lakes (Lower, Middle, and Upper Saranac) connected by short carries — the regional paddle template. The Saranac Lakes Wild Forest holds 76 named peaks within a half-hour drive. The Adirondack Carry, the historic Lower-to-Middle portage, is still a working route.

If Lake Placid is the region's stage — Olympic medals, gala lodging, the visitor-economy showcase — Saranac Lake is its working backstage. It is where the central Park's outfitters, guides, artists, and bookkeepers actually live. Many of the people who run the visitor economy in the High Peaks region keep their houses here, not over the hill in Lake Placid. The village benefits from that, in ways the visitor feels almost immediately on arrival.