FIS World Cup Lake Placid 2026

[FlyFishingandBeer]

For those who keep up with XC skiing, or read any local news sources, you know that Mt. Vanho hosted the FIS World Cup this past weekend. Here's a little "after action review":

The transportation situation was a complete cluster F on day one, but ran VERY smoothly and efficiently on days two and three. Quick fix; good results.

The event was generally very well laid out, and access to the various parts of the venue was very easy.

There were a good variety of product/sponsor venues, although I was a bit surprised that more local business didn't take the opportunity to set up shop in the vendor village. It would have been a fantastic sales opportunity for The Mountaineer, Mountain Man Outfitters, EMS, ADK Mountain Club, The Fallen Arch, etc. Maybe they weren't given the opportunity? maybe somebody else can chime in on that one.

The event security and volunteers were very courteous and helpful.

The whole place was high energy and positive from start to finish each day, despite the weather. It was an international crowd of spectators and there seemed to be a strong sense of camaraderie among virtually everyone... basically the opposite of an NFL or MLB game.

My daughter got to participate in Jessie Diggins' "final lap" ceremony, and as last minute volunteers, two of my daughter's SC ski coaches and I were able to enter the stadium and hang out right at the end of Jessie's final lap ski pole salute, which you've probably seen on social media by now. That was a very cool experience. It was funny but also very neat that Lake Placid essentially claimed Jessie as a "home town" athlete and named a local holiday after her. A lot of people don't realize how much time she spent training and hiking in and around LP throughout her time as a member of Team USA.

All in all, the event was excellent. It was a big deal to have an FIS world cup event come to the US and be hosted right here in NY. There was a lot of concern that the first day's shuttling issues would scare off future WC events from coming around, but people seemed to have gotten over it pretty quickly and remained grateful to be there.

Some links to media coverage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gnH90NrKTc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwiwFuNIVRQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJwPJKNkSws

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYKvYlXp-rI

[tcd]

It is great that we had a major sports event in our area, and that it actually drew a crowd!

I'm not as comfortable with the transportation situation. (Note: I was not trying to attend the event, this is just the view of a local driver.)

Of course we all heard about the cluster on Friday, and how unhappy people were that the transportation failure caused them to miss seeing events they planned on seeing. But things were NOT good on the other days either. I drove from Keene to Lake Placid on Sunday (the trip was not related to the event), and I was horrified at what I saw on Route 73. There were crowds of people walking along the narrow shoulders of the 55mph highway on both sides for a long distance. The nearby campground was offering event parking ($20). Of course the campground is on the other side of the road from the event, so there were crowds, including small children crossing the highway. No one was directing traffic; pedestrians were suddenly stepping out to cross; drivers were slamming on brakes. And there was ZERO police presence where this was happening. There were two police cars right at the entrance to Van Ho, but no presence where the major pedestrian action was happening. (Needless to say, I returned to Keene via Wilmington, and avoided this "disaster area.")

This whole situation was an accident waiting to happen. I guess miracles still happen, because I have not read of any accidents. But the transportation situation was GROSSLY mismanaged, and we all just got lucky.

The whole transportation thing actually surprised me a great deal. Locals who were here in 1980 have commented that this was reminiscent of that. After falling on their face so badly in 1980, I would have expected that a "come to Jesus" speech would have been made from high up, well before the event. Something along the lines of "You might screw up some things; but so help me God, don't screw up the transportation." And I would have expected the transportation element to be "over-resourced", if only to put on a show that says "We learned something, and we did it better this time." But apparently not.

I hope we get more big events. But I hope someone actually learns something this time, before we have a tragedy on the highway.

[FlyFishingandBeer]

That’s a really good point that I hadn’t considered from the POV of having followed the organizers’ guidance on parking and shuttling.

The only people allowed to use the VanHo lots were the teams, vendors, organizers, and people who purchased the upgraded VIP passes… that sounds like a lot, but not in comparison to the folks who used the free shuttling sites.

The people who were offering/charging for parking closer to the venue really shouldn’t have. I’m probably going to catch some **** for saying this, but I don’t really care because it needs to be said. While they might have had the best intentions in regards to giving people closer options to park, that is what caused all the foot traffic along route 73. The shuttle locations had ample parking for everyone in attendance and aside from what happened on Friday (allegedly some bus drivers just called it for the day and left...? can't confirm). It was a very smooth and efficient process. We actually left for the venue a little bit later on Sunday, and the horse show grounds were nowhere close to full, the shuttles were still running constantly, and for some reason there were still hundreds of people walking up and down Rt. 73 to paid parking spots.

I’m not going to put any of that on the organizers because they made it pretty clear that all transportation to offsite locations would be provided so there was really no reason for people to be walking up and down that busy stretch of road and causing a lot of the vehicle congestion that was taking place.

Hopefully the traffic congestion, the people walking along the roads, and the faux pas on Friday don’t prevent future events from coming back to the area.

EDIT: I can’t confirm or deny what you saw in regards to lack of traffic direction when you were passing the venue. I know that during the busiest arrival and departure times, there were state police present and directing traffic along 73, the VanHo access road crossing, and at the entrance of the horse show grounds. I’m not sure what their presence looked like while the ski events were actively taking place.

[BillyGr]

Sounds like it's nothing that those running it did, and not even sure that it can be prevented. I mean, if someone owns property there privately, it's kind of hard to stop them from letting people park on it for an event, and obviously having to pay to do so didn't keep many from doing it even when it was not needed (that is, there was free parking elsewhere and service to get from there to the event).

Not like other places where people do that due to a lack of parking that the event has use of (I'd think of an event like the Big E in West Springfield), or places where the private parking is closer than official parking without the transport option (think some places in Saratoga around the track).

[FlyFishingandBeer]

I don’t think anyone decided to allow parking for the sake of causing problems, but you’re correct in your observations about private lots close to other venues. The problem with this event is that none of the private lots were really that close. VanHo isn’t surrounded by nearby private lots like SPAC or Highmark Stadium and other places where it’s normal for people to park nearby and walk to the game or concert. tcd is correct in his assessment that there was a dangerous situation with people haplessly shuffling along route 73. With the exception of folks staying at TMax and Topos, I can’t really fathom why people didn’t just use any of the three shuttle sites as advised.


Comparatively, I went to a concert at Lakeview Amphitheater in Syracuse a few years back and the shuttle wait to get back from the amphitheater entrance to the lower fairgrounds parking was over two hours, and that’s only a mile and a half in a city where public transportation is actually pretty robust. We said “F it” and walked after taking one look at those lines. Given the fact that it has been 45 years since Lake Placid has hosted an event this big during a single weekend, I wouldn’t really say they did that bad of a job.

[tcd]

It's impossible to know, but personally, I don't think the State thought about this enough prior to the event. The stain of the 1980 transportation failure is still so present, as I said, I remain really surprised that the State did not make SURE that there would be no transportation problems.

During Covid, the State showed that it can and will do ANYTHING IT WANTS TO, without regard to the law or even the Constitution. So I disagree that they could not prevent private parking. They could easily shut that down if they wanted to; they just did not think about it.

If it's really important for something to go right, you get some smart people together well in advance, and you tell them "think of anything that could possibly be a problem, and figure out how to prevent it." It would take about 5 minutes to realize that private parking, and resulting pedestrians on Route 73 would be a potential problem.

They just didn't think about it.