Old Mountain Road in the Sentinel Range Wilderness is known as a popular section of the Jackrabbit Ski Trail during the winter months.
But since 2003, it has also been the center of a controversy over whether it’s also legally a town road.
Most recently, a state court ruled that the ski trail has retained its status as a town road because it was never legally abandoned.
That ruling took place on March 1. The next day, with snow falling, Explorer Editor Phil Brown and I visited the road to shoot some photos and a video to give readers an idea of what the Old Mountain Road landscape looks like.
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The 3.2-mile trail runs from Mountain Lane in Lake Placid to Alstead Hill Road in Keene. It was originally part of the Northwest Bay Road that was established in the early 1800s. That road ran from what is now Westport on Lake Champlain to Elizabethtown, through the Cascade Lakes area, to Lake Placid, Saranac Lake and Hopkinton.
Today, Old Mountain Road has the physical appearance of a trail. People walk it in the warmer months and ski it in the winter. It crosses through several beaver meadows and alongside of cliffs on Pitchoff Mountain. It’s an incredibly scenic place to visit, and when the snow is deep enough, a great place to ski.
To get a view of it yourself, check out this short video from our ski and the photo gallery above.
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Mike there are 2 things people seem to be missing. First before it was a ski trail it was a snowmobile trail maintained by snowmobiler’s. The illegal act of the DEC claiming they own the OMR is why it appears to be a trail today. This is called fruit from a poison tree. Claiming its a trail because it looks like one today would be like me say a hiking trail in the High Peaks is a stream because the erosion makes it look like one.