The Cornell University Maple Research Center

My sister and I had just visited the John Brown farm in Lake Placid, NY (see yesterday's post) and began driving back to the main road. But we had to stop for photo of the Adirondack high peaks behind the John Brown farm. You can just see the peak of the John Brown farm house above the little shed. As for the mountains, I can't identify them although I probably hiked a good number of them when I was younger:

We could also see the Lake Placid Olympic ski jumps from the John Brown farm:

So before getting back on the main road, we pulled in for a closer look. The picture doesn't convey the immense size of these things. They were impressive!

Before leaving Lake Placid, we stopped at the Cornell University Maple Research Station:

It was very much open, even though they weren't currently boiling sap:

We went inside the sugar house to see the huge, modern evaporator:

Signs explained the operation:

And maple syrup was available for folks to buy if they arrived when the building wasn't open:

And then we went into the main building:

That was a busy place, with a number of people unpacking boxes of empty jugs and then filling them with syrup:

There was, of course, maple syrup for sale - and lots of it:

One man began explaining the operation to us:

They also make birch syrup, so he gave us a taste. The funny thing was that everyone described the taste differently. The man said it was savory, not sweet. My sister said it was fruity. I thought it tasted like molasses. Some people say it has a mineral taste. One thing I can say is that it is much more expensive than maple syrup, largely because it takes more sap per gallon of syrup, but also (I suspect) because there are fewer big birch trees in the forest and a smaller market for it. My sister purchased both types of syrup to take back with her to Ohio. This was the end of our Adirondack excursion, so we headed back to the farm to let the dogs out. They were sure happy to see us: