The Mirror Lake Inn in the village of Lake Placid is seen here on April 16, 2023, two days after the ice went out. (News photo — Andy Flynn)

TUPPER LAKE — The Tri-Lakes region is in the path of totality for the solar eclipse on April 8, and many local hotels and businesses are preparing for what they expect to be a tidal wave of tourism.

“I know we’re going to be full,” said Joe Chojnowski, owner of Tupper Lake’s Red Top Inn Lakefront Resort.

MAP: See an interactive solar eclipse map.

This eclipse is a rare one — it will be the first total solar eclipse to directly hit the Tri-Lakes in at least a millennium. A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon lines up precisely between the sun and Earth, casting its shadow created by our star — which is usually reserved for the emptiness of space — directly onto our planet, traveling in a line along the globe’s surface. A partial eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017, brought more than 500 people to the Adirondack Sky Center and Observatory in Tupper Lake and around 1,800 to the Wild Center, but tourism officials expect visitation on April 8 to eclipse that figure many times over.

Though he’s sure the inn will be full, Chojnowski said it’s hard to tell just how much business will come through town.

Suzanne Orlando, proprietor of the Faust Motel in Tupper Lake, said they have been booked for months. Orlando described a general excitement around town for the coming solar event.

“It’s great that the eclipse is coming through,” she said.

Orlando is particularly excited about the likely boost in business and recognition for ASCO, which will host a number of family-friendly activities starting Sunday, April 7 and continuing on the day of the eclipse, April 8.

But Orlando also said that some local business owners are fearful that the influx of eclipse-goers might overwhelm their little town. According to Great American Eclipse, a website that provides information and maps on eclipses around the world, between 900,000 and 3.7 million people are expected to travel to points of totality. An estimated 31 million will already be there.

In Paul Smiths, White Pine Camp innkeeper Timothy Moody said their nine cabins, which can accommodate about 40 people, are fully booked.

“We were fully booked a full year to the day (of the eclipse),” Moody said.

Reservations for the camp can only be booked as early as one year in advance. Moody said on April 8, 2023, they saw immediate full booking for April 8, 2024.

According to Moody, April is usually a fairly vacant month for the camp. In the Adirondacks, April is peak mud season, and the weather can be unpredictable. Generally, it’s a shoulder season that doesn’t draw a high volume of visitors. With the eclipse, however, Moody expects that the other hotels in the area will be fully booked as well, if they aren’t already.

“We have a wait list a mile long,” Moody said. “It’s good for the other local businesses too. They will see a boom from this.”

In Lake Placid, the Mirror Lake Inn is “pretty much absolutely full,” according to front desk and reservation agent Sam Jubin. The inn, which is offering an eclipse package that includes viewing glasses, will “greatly benefit” from the event, he said. Even during a partial eclipse, it is dangerous to look up at the sun. The sun’s rays overload the retina and can burn the eye leaving long-lasting damage. Solar glasses must be worn at all other times to prevent damage to the retina. But during the total eclipse, viewers will be able to take those glasses off and see the sun’s corona, its outer atmosphere, which is rarely seen as sunlight usually overwhelms the lighter gaseous atmosphere.

Jubin said when she started at the inn on April 4, 2023, they were already approaching full booking.

In Saranac Lake, the Hotel Saranac reports the same.

“We had people calling a year and a half ago,” Director of Sales Myra Rondeau said.

Rondeau is on a small eclipse committee under the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism, created to tackle the challenges of such a large number of visitors, such as parking and public restroom availability and compiling viewing information for the public. For eclipse weekend, the hotel is offering rooms with a two-night minimum. Rondeau said the books are already at 90% capacity.

“I think there’s going to be a huge influx into the area,” she said, “This is a once in a multi-generation experience here in the Adirondacks.”

ASCO Board President Seth McGowan told the News in April that people from all over the world are going to be seeking a coveted spot in the 70-mile-wide path of totality. Tupper Lake already has some of the darkest skies on the East Coast, as well as the only astronomy-based organization in Adirondacks.

On the edges of the path of totality, this event could just last for a few seconds, he said, and while those areas may attract many spectators, people aren’t shy about traveling an extra hour or so to get more time in the moon’s umbra. In 2017, McGowan and his wife traveled down to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, a city of around 30,000 people that was viewed as the epicenter of that eclipse. An avid amateur astronomer, he had planned this trip a year or two in advance. The city/county of Hopkinsville estimated that around 116,500 people were visiting there that day.

According to NASA data, portions of the Adirondacks have been in the path of totality for total solar eclipses at least four times in the past millennium — on Jun. 16, 1806; Sept. 10, 1569; Jan. 21, 1395; and Dec. 10, 1349. The two most recent eclipses were focused on the southernmost or northernmost portions of the Park.