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Beyond the scenery

LAKE PLACID – Looking out over the High Peaks at the top of the Olympic ski jumps, 13-year-old Jesus “Bubba” Willis couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“When you realize this isn’t a picture,” Willis said to several of his friends, peering through the ski jump’s chain link fence, “it’s real life right now.”

Willis was one of 30 members of the Boys and Girls Club of Schenectady who were bused by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office to the third annual Adirondack Winter Challenge, an event the governor hatched to promote tourism in the North Country by having public officials from all over the state participate in winter sports here.

Under mostly clear blue skies and in 40 degree weather, almost every visitor Sunday lauded the beauty of the Adirondacks. Assemblyman Joseph Saladino of Long Island went as far as saying the scenery driving through Keene matched the most beautiful calendar photographs he’d ever seen.

“When you come up on the ski jumps,” he said, “it absolutely takes your breath away.”

Non-North Country residents gawking at the beauty of the Adirondacks is nothing new, but the weather the region has experienced this season is.

With the Adirondack Winter Challenge coming in the midst of the warm weather in which the snow shortage has hurt the local economy, the question remains: During these difficult times how does the rest of the state view the Adirondacks?

“It has to be a historic winter; the weather is so different (with) the lack of snow,” said state Sen. Betty Little, a Republican from Queensbury who has represented this area in Albany since the 1990s.

“I bet you there are adults here today who have never been to Lake Placid.”

The chance to turn youngsters like Willis into reoccurring visitors represents the juncture the North Country is at in its financial and social relationship with the rest of the state. A disconnect persists.

A 1,000-person survey the Wild Center museum of Tupper Lake released in January found that 86 percent of upstate and New York City-area residents aged 22 to 34 had heard of the Adirondacks, but only 52 percent of upstate residents had been there. Only 16 percent of New York City area residents had been to the region.

Better news, according to the study, is that 49 percent of respondents statewide said they’d like to go to the Adirondacks.

“Millennials don’t know where to start planning to visit us,” the report reads. “We need to draw the horse to water with more specific ideas.”

Fifty nine percent of respondents said they knew about the area’s craft breweries and wine offerings, and 45 percent said they had knowledge of the area’s “emerging” food scene.

The report also stated many respondents were confused as to what the Adirondack Park had to offer, some saying they imagined the area as an “empty park” with “nothing.”

The 13-year-old Willis’ preconceptions of the area were similar. He said he did not expect the area to have as much to do as he eventually experienced.

“I thought it was just a whole bunch of skiing ramps and a lot of snow,” Willis said. “I just expected an open area.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, those born between 1981 and 2000 will be half of the workforce in the U.S. by 2020. With that projected reality on the horizon in the next four years, the Adirondacks may be at one of its greatest crossroads yet in terms of enticing long-term repeat visitors from outside the region.

Some environmentalists project the climate of the Adirondacks may be similar to Richmond, Virginia by the end of the century, (Richmond averaged 9.4 inches of snow per winter season between 1981 and 2010, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). The good news for the North Country is the High Peaks and the state park aren’t going anywhere, but unpredictable weather patterns are likely to continue. With that, more versatile events, activities and sports not as reliant on cold winter weather and snow may become more important to the area’s economy.

Weatherproof activities may also ensure visitors from the rest of the state continue to visit often, whether weather is hot or cold. One new sport is fat-tire biking, added to the Winter Challenge list this year. Meanwhile, snowmobiling was scratched from the schedule, and cross-country skiing was relocated from Mount Van Hoevenberg, which lacked snow, to the ski jumps complex which has artificial snowmaking.

Brian Delaney, owner of High Peaks Cyclery, led the fat-tire bike exhibition, and local Assemblyman Dan Stec took part along with his son Peter. Stec, who has hiked the 46 Adirondack High Peaks, raved about it, and spoke of how it could be a boom to the North Country in the future.

“Bringing a different group of people up here, instead of hikers and skiers,” Stec said, “now you’ve got cyclists that maybe they will try our shoulder seasons where typically they are not conducive to cycling.”

Assemblywoman Pat Fahy, representing the Capital Region’s 109th District, agreed the North Country is at times a forgotten part of the state. After taking her daughter shopping down Main Street and purchasing running shoes at The Fallen Arch, she said she’s worried about small businesses hurting as a result of climate change.

The Long Island representative Saladino said he thinks officials are beginning to educate the rest of the state of the different things to do in the North Country, but slowly.

Cuomo was absent from the Winter Challenge due to a personal schedule conflict, but the governor’s administration did use the event to announce $500,000 for tourism promotion, focused on creating a new cross-border advertising campaign aimed at Canadian travelers with advertisements in both French and English. The announcement brought the state’s total investment in tourism promotion to $4.5 million for the year. In a statement following the event, Cuomo touted that his administration is investing in tourism and local assets “like never before” to create jobs and stimulate the upstate economy.

“Its payoff is crystal clear across this region and in every corner of our state,” he said.

But does the area need even more, considering the uncertain future of the weather? Whether it be state funds or just respect?

“I hope they understand that we aren’t just wooden heads up here,” Tupper Lake Mayor Paul Maroun said. “We know things, too: what’s going on, how to develop, how to preserve the environment. We also need the same things they need: infrastructure and better transportation.

“Talking with them,” Maroun continued, “now they are getting to understand more that this is the Adirondack Park but people actually live here.”

Little echoed Maroun’s message. She said Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan of Long Island recently visited Plattsburgh, remarking that he’d seen more trees in one day than ever before in his life. She cautioned that merely selling the North Country as a perfect calendar photo may be misleading to the rest of the state.

“It’s probably hard to tell when you look around, because everything looks so good,” she said, “but it gives us a chance to tell them that it’s a tough winter and things have been difficult.”

Stec had a similar message, saying legislators were taken aback this weekend when grasping the geographic size of his district, stretching from Glens Falls to Lake Placid.

“I think that they start to make those connections and associations and realize the issues are different and the solutions might be different,” Stec said. “For them to realize that, hey, this is a fragile economy in the wintertime and dependent on Mother Nature and things we really can’t control, it just helps paint a picture for them so that they are sympathetic and they can picture it when you’re laying out a problem for them.”

Speaking in the Conference Center outside a full room of state officials Sunday, still wearing his biking gear, Delaney compared surviving financially in the Adirondacks to a guessing game. With weather changing, anticipating markets is part of life as a businessman in the North Country.

The High Peaks Cyclery owner then recited an old adage: “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just good gear and good clothing.”

To him, it’s somewhat true. It’s all about finding the right fit for the realities of the region.

“All they need to do down in the city of Albany,” Delaney said, “is look to the north and take one step to the north and relive their day that they experienced here and say, ‘Wow, they really do have a good thing going up in Lake Placid, and the Adirondacks.’ And they know it’s tough to make a living.

“Just don’t forget about us.”

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