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Fast Facts on the Adirondack Coast
Get quick and fun facts about Plattsburgh, Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks.

Plattsburgh

• Plattsburgh is the largest city in northeastern New York with 20,000 residents.
• Just 60 miles north of Plattsburgh is Montreal, QC, with more than 3.5 million people.
• Twenty percent of area residents are of French ancestry.
• The city of Plattsburgh boasts the largest fresh water beach in the continental U.S.
• The Champlain Valley is one of greatest apple regions in the U.S.
• Chazy, just north of Plattsburgh, is home to the largest McIntosh orchard in the world with more than 80,000 trees.
• Plattsburgh has been connected with the military in one form or another for more than 400 years.
• The Plattsburgh Air Force Base, closed in 1995, was the longest active military installation in the United States.

Lake Champlain

• Samuel de Champlain first sailed into the lake that now bears his name and claimed for France in 1609.
• Lake Champlain is the sixth largest lake in the U.S. stretching 120 miles north to south with 600 miles of shoreline.
• Lake Champlain is 12 miles across at its widest point.
• The first U.S .Naval battle was fought off Valcour Island just south of Plattsburgh during the Revolutionary War.
• Hundreds of documented sightings of Champ, Lake Champlain’s own sea monster describe a creature with a long neck, thick body, 15-50 feet long, four fins and a long tail.
• Lake Champlain became the 6th Great Lake in 1998 under President Clinton.  The designation was reversed 4 weeks later.
• A year round ferry crosses Lake Champlain to connect Plattsburgh to the state of Vermont.
• The Lake Champlain Birding Trail is ranked by Audubon Magazine among the top six destinations in the U.S. for bird watching.
• With a maximum depth of 400 feet, Lake Champlain features more than 80 species of warm and cold-water fish.
• Lake Champlain was named one of the 25 Hottest Fishing Spots in the U.S. by Field & Stream in 2005.
• FLW Outdoors named Lake Champlain & Plattsburgh one of the hottest bass-fishing destinations in 2006.

The Adirondacks

• The Adirondack Park is the largest park in the mainland United States with more than 6 million acres – about the same size as the state of Vermont.
• The park features more than 3,000 lakes and ponds, 30,000 miles of brooks and streams.
• The Adirondack Park contains 85% of all wilderness in the Eastern United States.
• It’s the only park in the U.S. where large populations live within the park’s boundaries – with more than 137,000 year round residents.
• The Adirondacks have the largest trail system in the U.S. with more than 2,000 miles of hiking trails.
• Two thousand mountains are in the park, 100 of them are more than 3,000 feet
• Lake Placid, NY, population 2,600, was home to the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympic Games.
• Whiteface Mountain is the only ski area east of the Rockies to have hosted the Winter Olympic Games.
• An estimated 7-10 million tourists visit the region annually.