The Lake Placid Film Festival is a long-standing, well-loved celebration of film that brings fans, directors, and producers to the Olympic Village each year to learn about and discuss the art form and to view an array of new films.
Because they also promote the creation of local and regional films, they chose this year to include a grand tour of Lake Placid’s Olympic venues for their amateur and professional filmmakers. An engaging group of about 30 attendees joined this first-ever film fest tour, which focused on the history and legacy of Olympic sites and the many vital modernizations that have once again elevated these venues onto the international stage.
Guided by Olympic Authority communications staff, the tour was a journey through these venues’ past, present, and future, offering insights into Lake Placid’s prominence in winter sport around the world while showcasing their events, recreation, and athlete development functions, all in a uniquely fun and informative way.
The tour began at the Olympic Jumping Complex, where participants gathered in the Intervales Lodge to view and discuss the iconic jump towers and the upgrades that made this the only jumping facility in North America homologated for summer and winter competition. The group then rode the glass elevator to the viewing platform of the large HS 128 meter jump, where views of the High Peaks were somewhat but not entirely shrouded in clouds. Climbing the stairs even higher, they gained the athlete’s perspective, looking down the new ceramic in-runs that make competition safer and the conditions on the jumping surface far more consistent.
At Mt Van Hoevenberg, a beacon of Olympic history with a distinctive array of sport and recreation, film fest tour participants toured the spacious new Mountain Pass Lodge, witnessing the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton team in training on the only refrigerated indoor track in the country. They also enjoyed the outstanding views the biathlon and cross country stadiums out the large windows in the well-appointed second floor lounge. After all that, they climbed aboard shuttles to ride to Start One of the combined bobsled, skeleton, and luge track, where teams from around the world had already begun their training the previous weekend.
In downtown Lake Placid, the tour continued at the Olympic Center, where participants marveled at the close-enough-to-touch view of the original scoreboard of the 1980 Miracle on Ice game, located just inside the doors of the new Miracle Plaza. From there, the group toured the 1980 Herb Brooks Arena, the home to that iconic game, the USA Rink, and the 1932 Jack Shea Arena, the first indoor ice rink used in an Olympics.
Winding up the tour in an extraordinary way, the group explored the Lake Placid Olympic Museum. The combination of interactive displays, such as the bobsled and ski jumping exhibits, historic photos, artifacts, and details recounted by the tour guides, made for a richly engaging experience. As often happens at the end of a visit to the museum, the 12-minute Miracle on Ice movie exhibit reached out to touch the hearts of the film fest participants in a way little else can, leaving them feeling the full effect of the Lake Placid legacy.
Because Whiteface Mountain can be seen from each of the other venues, that venue was discussed at length during the tours at the different venues, giving participants a greater appreciation of the alpine ski and snowboard venue.
The opportunity for the festival’s organizers and amateur and professional filmmakers to tour the venues in this way helped demonstrate the unique aspects of the Olympic Village that make it an inspiring place to visit, live, recreate, train, compete, and more. Lake Placid is an extraordinary place, surrounded by a vast and stunningly beautiful wilderness and complete with its tight-knit and fulfilling sense of community. By mixing in the Olympic venues and their powerful legacy, the character of this mountain village is seen in an even more rare and special way.
There is nowhere else like it. That makes this chance to experience all these remarkable facets of Lake Placid in such a close-up and meaningful way a truly rewarding experience for all involved.