I'm going to Lake Placid during a business meeting in two weeks. One of our outings is hitting up the Olympic shooting range. Has anybody been up there for it? Looks like fun.

Back in the mid 1980's I was an official at some of the World Games held in Lake Placid. My favorite event was the biathlon. I was the official that directed the shooters/skiers onto the penalty loop when they missed a target, and I had to keep track of the laps they took - 1 lap for each missed target. Mt. VonHovenberg, where the cross-country and shooting events were held, is a great winter destination for cross country skiing.

 

Another year I worked the ski jump. My "job" that year, if you want to call it that, was making sure fans didn't get too close to the ski jumpers. I was stationed right at the end of the ramp where the jumpers took off. Talk about a closeup view. As an fyi, the ski jumbers are never more than 6 or 8 feet off the ground the entire time they're in the air. They follow the curve of the mountain all the way down. Looks a lot different in person than on tv.

 

All volunteer stuff, but got to go everywhere on an "official" pass. Bobsled track, Biathlon range, Luge track, Ski jumps, etc. Even got to watch the Giant Slalom down hill race just a few feet from the course. Room and board at the village dorms with the athletes (not the dorms from the olympics - that's a prison now), but the barracks in downtown Lake Placid. Got into a great ping-pong match with one of the Luge athletes from East Germany. This was back in the cold-war days when the Russian athletes were held in seperate motels rented by the teams, with guards stationed outside.

 

The last year I worked there I brought my girlfriend at the time with me. We will have been married now 25 years in a few months.

 

Sorry for the trip down memory lane. You'll enjoy the range, but there is so much more to do there than just that. Lake Placid is one of the few areas that has hosted the olympics more than once, and it's the eastern training camp for winter olympic athletes.