Weekend in the Adirondacks – Part I

This past weekend Chris and I went on a mini Adirondack Vacation! We left Friday afternoon and stayed at Garnet Hill Lodge until Sunday.

Located near Thirteenth Lake in North River, the lodge was only about 1 hour and 40 minutes North of Albany. It was really nice to get away! The lodge is a bed & breakfast, so the rate included breakfast each morning. There is a restaurant and pub located right in the lodge, too, so we got dinner there too, but it’s not included in the price.

The view from our room was amazing, it was so relaxing there.

After settling in on Friday evening, we headed right downstairs to get dinner. We chose to eat at the Pub (you had the option to get dinner at the main restaurant also), but we wanted to sit near the windows to get the nice view! (FYI: I’ll do a separate post on the food!)

The atmosphere was so laid back and relaxed and the staff was so friendly and accommodating! After dinner we ordered some drinks at the bar and headed out to relax in the chairs they had on the front lawn.

After the sun went down they started a campfire in the firepit and brought out marshmallows and sticks for the guests to roast. It was pretty sweet!

Saturday morning we got breakfast and then headed out to the grounds to do some hiking. There are tons of trails all around the lodge, most of which are meant for cross country skiing in the winter. However, in the summertime guests can rent mountain bikes and use the trails for biking and even trail running. There were a few easy hikes around that had some moderate inclines, too. Chris and I hiked to the William Blake Pond, the Hooper Mine and up to the Balm of Gilead Mountain, which had a nice view!

The hike was tiring! I guess my body just isn’t used to climbing! Anyway, it was nice to be able to return to the lodge after our hike and just relax!

We ate dinner at the lodge on Saturday night and just spent the evening sitting out on our balcony and reading. It was quite nice.

Sunday morning we got breakfast and then checked out of our room. Thankfully they let us go down to the lake and rent a canoe before we left! We waited for the weather to clear up (Saturday looked like a storm would hit any minute) so we saved the lake for Sunday morning.

It was so beautiful! We had such a great weekend up here…I would love to go back! Stay tuned–tomorrow I’ll post Part II about the food at the lodge.

Note: Garnet Hill didn’t pay me to write about our stay-we paid to stay here and this is just my honest opinion about it–I just wanted to share it since it was so nice!