North Elba Park District employee Tracy Daby takes off in the Bobcat to remove more snow on Mirror Lake Thursday, Feb. 25. He had already cleared the rinks in front of the beach house and the outrun of the Lake Placid Toboggan Chute and was heading over to help prepare the ice for the upcoming CAN/AM Pond Hockey Tournament. (News photo — Andy Flynn)

LAKE PLACID — When North Elba Park District workers need to get from the top of the Lake Placid Toboggan Chute to the bottom, they grab a snow shovel, sit down on the blade, hold onto the handle between their legs, and ride it down to the Mirror Lake ice.

“The guys will do it today,” said Tracy Daby, who has worked as a Park District maintenance employee for the past 31 years. “I won’t. I used to come down on a shovel, but I’m too old for that now. I just turned 50, so my days of going down this are over.”

Instead, Daby manages the Mirror Lake snow removal for the town, not just for the outrun of the toboggan chute but for the ice rinks in front of the beach house. Visitors play pickup hockey there or skate with their families. Or they’ll just walk around the ice. The skating path around the lake is usually teeming with people, but it wasn’t cleared this year.

“If I could have got out here, I could have done the path, but this year there was so much snow before, and I had a piece of equipment down. I couldn’t get the snow off quick enough,” Daby said.

Daby clears snow off the ice in the recreation areas as early in the season as possible. He uses a lighter vehicle at first once the ice is 4 to 5 inches thick and then the heavier Bobcat when the ice is 8 to 10 inches.

North Elba Park District employee Tracy Daby at the Lake Placid Toboggan Chute on Mirror Lake. (News photo — Andy Flynn)

“The more snow there is, the less ice you’re going to have because it insulates the ice,” he said. What looks like safe ice may not be, for one simple reason: “There is no ice that is safe.”

The village learned that lesson the hard way on Jan. 30. A tractor being used to clear snow for the CAN/AM Pond Hockey Tournament fell through the ice. The driver jumped to safety before the rear of the vehicle submerged. It was pulled out of the water the next day, and the tournament was postponed for a few weeks.

“It could have been me,” Daby said, not faulting the driver. “It wasn’t a mistake. It was just a soft hole. And you have to be totally careful out here all the time. You see water, you’ve got to stay away from it.”

When clearing the pathways with the Bobcat, Daby stays away from the snowbanks. They heat the ice and soften it, so they’re not safe.

“Every bank you get, you have to come in farther and farther and farther,” he said. “You can’t go near the banks or you’ll go in with a piece of equipment, and you won’t get it out.”

COVID-19 precautions are in place at the toboggan chute. (News photo — Andy Flynn)

After clearing the snow, Daby may go to his office at the North Elba Show Grounds or fix anything that needs fixing. He never knows exactly what his work day will bring, and that’s what he likes the most about his job — the unpredictability.

“I don’t like doing the same thing over and over. I do different stuff every day,” he said.

North Elba Park District Manager Butch Martin hired Daby right after graduation from the Lake Placid High School in 1989. They knew each other through hockey; Daby as a player and Martin as a referee.

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COVID pandemic

Lake Placid Toboggan Chute on Parkside Drive on Feb. 25, 2021 (News photo — Andy Flynn)

Last summer’s uptick in tourists seeking outdoor recreation during the coronavirus pandemic hasn’t slowed down in Lake Placid. Backcountry traffic in the High Peaks Wilderness continued through the fall, and each holiday this winter has seen higher-than-usual visitor numbers. In his 31 years with the Park District, Daby has never seen as many people at the toboggan chute as he saw this winter.

“More business than ever,” he said. “It’s been packed. Very, very, very, very busy. This town has been overwhelmed with people this year … It’s just nobody has anything to do but do this and sled, you know, and ski and this is the town to do it.”

Signs as visitors approach the toboggan chute ticket office are clear about the rules: “Face covering and social distance is required at all times.”

“Because of COVID, we have to make sure everybody’s 6 feet apart, which the toboggans are 6 feet, so that’s what keeps our distance,” Daby said.

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The Siegert/Titas family from Cape Cod, Massachusetts takes their second run down the Lake Placid Toboggan Chute in February 2019 during the annual Lions Club races. From front to back are son Owen Siegert, mom Megan Titas, family friend Nancy Miller of San Diego, California, and dad Jeff Siegert. It was their first time tobogganing. (News photo — Andy Flynn)

Toboggan chute

Residents and visitors have been tobogganing at this site on Parkside Drive since the mid-1960s. In 1965, the village transformed an old ski jump from the Lake Placid Club into a toboggan chute, and it was used for the first time in the winter of 1966. Fifty years later, it was time to retire that chute, which didn’t open in 2016 because it was rusting and unsafe. A year later, a new toboggan chute built by Jeffords Steel in Plattsburgh opened.

“This one will last 100 years,” Daby said.

Early in the season, the workers have to build up the ice in the two runs. They use water and snow to slush the runs first and then, with a hose, water the runs until they’re thick enough.

“You can’t just water it because it runs right through the boards,” Daby said. “You have to slush it, and then you just water it on a cold day. It’s got to be really cold, like zero out.”

Top of the Lake Placid toboggan chute in February 2019 (News photo — Andy Flynn)

Once the toboggan chute is open for the season — the date always depends on the weather — it runs mainly on weekends and all through Presidents Day week, with afternoon and evening hours.

Four employees usually work the chute at a time, some in the ticket booth/toboggan shed and some on top of the structure getting people on the sleds and sending them down to the ice. Three to four people are put on each sled. And while there are two runs, side by side, it is only safe for one toboggan to go down at a time. Once the people on the ice are off the sled and on their feet, another toboggan can be sent down.

“When you’re working at the top, your job is to sit people the right way so their feet aren’t out,” Daby said. “And to make sure they are comfortable and all the hands and arms and feet are all in before you can pull them down.”

Since a toboggan chute opened here in the 1960s, races have been held to see who can slide the farthest on the ice. The Lake Placid Lions Club maintains this tradition with its annual toboggan races every February.

Once on the ice, some sleds will slide to the left or the right, or they’ll start rotating like a helicopter blade. What’s the trick to a long ride?

“You either go far or you don’t,” Daby said. “There’s no trick. There’s no nothing. Sometimes you spin, sometimes you go straight.”

(North Country at Work is a project of North Country Public Radio and is used here by permission. For more information, visit https://www.northcountryatwork.org/.)