Northville Lake Placid Trail: The Long Lake Spur

The subject of this post is a new trail. The route is called the Long Lake Spur and it provides a convenient connection between the 140 mile Northville Lake Placid trail and Long Lake village. The trail replaces the 1.5 mile road walk previously used by many NLPT thru hikers to visit Long Lake for a respite from the trail, or to pick up packages at the Post Office. But the trail is also a prototype project for the Adirondack Community Based Trails and Lodging System initiative. The idea there is to bring something akin to hut-to-hut backcountry travel --popular in Europe and a few places in the U.S.-- to the Adirondacks.

The Three Brooks Ski Trail (purple) loops off of the Northville Lake Placid Trail (dark purple) with ends about one mile apart. The new spur trail to Long Lake Village is shown in dark red. For those familiar with Long Lake, the new trail comes out at into the Mt. Sabattis Recreation Area at the top of the hill. A downloadable version of this map (PDF) is found here.

The new trail is actually a spur off of the Three Brooks Ski trail. The Three Brooks trail forms a loop with the NLPT. Previously, it was little used and it received little maintenance. As part of preparing the new route, the Three Brooks trail has been brushed out and new signs and markers have been added to show the way.

New signs at each of the intersections make the route clear.

The new spur trail comes out at the top of the hill behind the Mt. Sabattis Recreation Area in Long Lake. The Long Lake Post Office, along with lodging and food services are found the bottom of the hill, a quarter of a mile away. Code Dog gives the new trail a five paw rating and the new trail will be popular with local residents as well as long distance hikers.