Wilmington officials consider their town as the mountain biking capital of the Adirondack Park, and for good reason; they’ve worked hard to create mountain bike trails in the woods, and the Whiteface Mountain Ski Center has a mountain bike park. The festival will include guided and self-guided rides as well as music, food and camping at the event headquarters, the Wilmington Recreation Park on Springfield Road.

The Lake Placid Hall of Fame committee this week released the names of the three people who will be inducted this year: Olympic biathlete Lowell Bailey, librarian Linda Blair and the late Luke Patnode, former director of the Lake Placid Chamber of Commerce.

In this week’s back-to-school story, Staff Writer Griffin Kelly spoke with John Burdick, who takes over as the Lake Placid Central School District’s athletic director for Donna Moody, who retired in June.

On the Arts page, Griffin also visited the Lake Placid Center for the Arts to interview Alison Simcox, the new marketing director.

We have a wrap-up of the USA Hockey National Hockey Coaches Symposium, which was held Aug. 23 to 26 at the Olympic Center. Designed for aspiring coaches seeking to attain their Level-5 certification, the event included speaking sessions with a number of Olympic, National Hockey League and college hockey team players and coaches.

In other news, North Country Community College students, faculty and staff returned for the first day of classes on Monday, Aug. 27; the state Department of Environmental Conservation announced that the High Peaks Wilderness Complex and the Vanderwhacker Mountain Wild Forest Unit Management Plan amendments are final and implementation of the management actions has begun; and Saranac Lake will celebrate 10 years of Hobofest on Sunday, Sept. 2.

In addition to columns from Naj Wikoff (On the Scene), Annoel Krider (Our Animals, Ourselves) and Martha Allen (Martha Sez), we have a North Country at Work feature from North Country Public Radio – a visit with Dr. Paul Seward, a long-time emergency physician who retired last year and published a memoir titled, “Patient Care: Death and Life in the Emergency Room.”

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SPORTS

The sports scene in Lake Placid is transitioning into fall, with high school soccer, volleyball and cross country teams in preparation mode for the regular season. Look for photos of the volleyball and girls soccer team on this week’s sports pages.

The United States luge, bobsled and skeleton teams are also revving things up, and results of early push/start competitions can be found in this week’s LPN.

In other sports news, skating correspondent Christie Sausa writes about a command performance given by Oleg Protopopov to close out Adult Skating Week.

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OUTDOORS

Outdoors Writer Justin A. Levine went on an interesting adventure last week as he and a friend attempted to find and climb the slide on Moose Mountain. Find out how the trip went on this week’s Adirondack Expeditions page.

Joe Hackett describes himself as a, “backwoods airhead with a college education.” Find out why by reading his column this week.

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