Rock and alpine scrub take over at the Whiteface Veterans' Memorial Highway pull-offs, and the High Peaks recede to the horizon. The road is paved to those pull-offs, so the day is a drive and a look, then Lake Placid's Olympic sites take the afternoon once you come down. You sleep at Wilmington Notch, the DEC campground on the Ausable.
Mount Marcy's approaches start at Heart Lake, where the Adirondack Mountain Club runs its own campground at the trailhead; that is the hiking side of the same High Peaks week.
As of September 2026, trailers and campers are not permitted on the Veterans' Memorial Highway, and RV access is allowed only as space allows, so a motorized campervan can try it and still be turned away at the toll house. The Adirondack Mountain Reserve requires a parking reservation from May 1 through October 31. Cascade's trailhead access is constrained and changes with the season.
On summer and foliage weekends the High Peaks campgrounds fill first. Lock Wilmington Notch, then the van. Saranac Lake is the overflow when this notch is full.
Saranac Lake and Fish Creek Pond
Fish Creek Pond has a natural sand shoreline and water-access sites sitting on the pond. It is the pond overnight west of the High Peaks. DEC's own campground page calls it the finest of the Adirondack campgrounds, and Rollins Pond is behind the same entrance. On summer and foliage weekends lock a site here before you lock the van, especially when Wilmington Notch is already gone.
Tupper Lake and the Wild Center
In Tupper Lake you spend the day at the Wild Center, the town's nature campus. Walk it from a Saranac Lake site, or sleep in Tupper if you want the next morning to start there.
Blue Mountain Lake, Long Lake, and Old Forge
At Blue Mountain Lake the Adirondack Experience spreads across an open-air campus of guideboats and fire towers overlooking the water. You wander the campus for a full afternoon, then sleep on that lake or keep moving down the chain toward Long Lake and Old Forge.
Lake Durant on that same shore closes right after Labor Day, while the High Peaks campgrounds run into mid-October. Its sites take 20 to 30 feet of back-in length, so if you need more sleeping space than a campervan, look at New York RV rentals and check the pad length first.
Long Lake continues the same chain, and Lake Eaton is the DEC overnight for that town. Old Forge is the southern turn, and Nicks Lake and Eighth Lake are the campgrounds you sleep in, running into mid-October with the High Peaks. Lake George is the Saratoga Springs trip.
Keene Valley trailheads
Route 73 through Keene Valley feeds the Garden and Rooster Comb lots, and both fill early. They are day use only, with no overnight at the trailhead. The Town of Keene treats those two as the lots that go first, so you hike from them and sleep at Wilmington Notch or Heart Lake. Lake Champlain and Ausable Chasm belong on the Plattsburgh page.