The first World Cup DH race track in Lake Placid was built without proper approval

Lake Placid is set to host its first UCI Mountain Bike World Series downhill race this weekend, October 3-5, 2025. Unfortunately, the race track has been built illegally.

The trail construction was more intensive than the filed work plan indicated

On September 22, 2025, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued a “Notice of Violation for the Unauthorized Expansion and Modification of Existing Structures and Improvements at the Whiteface Mountain Intensive Use Area” to the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA), which manages Whiteface Mountain and was in charge of the World Cup race track development. The notice was sent via email from Joseph M. Zalewski, Regional Director for DEC, to Ashley Walden, President and CEO of ORDA, and was first published by the Adirondack Explorer.

The four-page email outlines in detail the laws and environmental statutes that ORDA violated; here is a brief version. The lands managed by ORDA on Whiteface Mountain are protected in the New York Constitution, requiring that these lands “shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed.” Though ORDA has the ability to operate the Whiteface Mountain ski resort as an intensive use area, if it makes changes to any of the existing trails on the mountain, ORDA needs to file a draft work plan and get approval from the DEC.

The first forms were submitted by ORDA on January 29, 2025. The draft work plan was filed on August 20, 2025, and it reads:

The 2025 UCI Downhill World Cup mountain bike course will be established on existing mountain biking and hiking trails. The proposed course is within the footprint of existing improvements at Whiteface IUA. No new trail construction is proposed. All trails have been approved in previous unit management plan amendments. All construction of technical features will be done within the footprint of existing trails. Features that may interfere with the wintertime use of the facility will be removed. No tree cutting is proposed.

Here’s the problem: during the trail construction, over 30 trees were cut in the trail corridor. Furthermore, the trail corridor ended up being wider than the existing trail corridor. Neither of these developments align with the filed work plan, which therefore violates code CP-78. And cutting trees without DEC approval also violates Article VII of Attachment 2.

The tl;dr version? The construction of the World Cup track was substantially more involved than the work plan that ORDA had filed.

Who built this track? It’s complicated.

Originally, Jeremy Witek, owner and operator of Global Action Sports Solutions, was tapped to build this notable World Cup track. Earlier this year, reports indicated that Witek was collaborating with Aaron Gwin, five-time overall UCI Downhill Mountain Bike World Cup champion and owner of Windrock Bike Park, on the design of the track. Partnering with such a renowned American downhill racer to craft Lake Placid’s first World Cup race track promised both top-tier construction and a World Cup challenge.

However, drama unfolded during the build, and Witek and his crew decided to quit the project. “I got out of the project because I was uncomfortable with the working environment there,” said Witek in an article in the Times Union, adding that there were “pressures not per my agreement.”

Part of the problem was that ORDA attempted to make Global Action Sports Solutions responsible for the work plan filing with the DEC, which was not a term that Witek had ever agreed to. Witek said he “acted in good faith through the contract and tried to make things work,” but ultimately decided to pull out. The only other time he hasn’t finished a trail project was when the country of Italy canceled a build he was working on.

ORDA subsequently hired Backslope Trail Building LLC out of nearby Elizabethtown to finish the build. Backslope built the World Cup XC race course at Mount Van Hoevenberg, which was first used for the 2024 competition.

A sneak peek of the new World Cup race track

It appears that Gwin continued to consult on the construction of the track even after the contractor transition. He recently published a POV video of the first top-to-bottom run on the track, and it looks like a beauty of a build.

In the video, it’s easy to spot the sections that are much wider than a standard singletrack mountain bike trail. “There is a lot of options here on this track, which is super cool, kind of everything we wanted, lot of different lines and all that stuff,” said Gwin in his video. While the track is wider than a typical trail, sections like this with multiple line options are typical of World Cup downhill race courses.

Based on the information shared by Zalewski, it appears that the crux of the issue is that ORDA didn’t accurately communicate the scale of the trail development to the DEC. In a statement to the Adirondack Explorer, Walden said, “There were certainly challenges in the execution of this project on all levels, and it’s clear that some of our internal processes didn’t hold up as they should have.” Previously, Walden and ORDA Board Chair Joe Martens “attributed the trouble to bad communication and accepted responsibility,” according to the Adirondack Explorer.

Required changes from the DEC

While the World Cup race this weekend will go ahead without issue, the DEC is requiring ORDA to submit a corrective action plan by November 7, 2025, that addresses five different items:

1. Documentation of all work completed for the UCI Mountain Bike World Series downhill racecourse at Whiteface including the final build.
2. Development of a restoration plan that will bring all trails that exceed either the existing mountain bike guidance or the approved constitutional ski trails into conformance with applicable standards.
3. Appointment of a staff position to focus on work with DEC and APA staff on future facility development plans and projects and ensure compliance with legal requirements.
4. Mapping of all the constitutionally permitted ski trails at ORDA managed ski facilities on the Forest Preserve or Town owned lands using GIS, include these maps as reference for DEC and APA review in relation to all future workplans, and share this digital data in a format specified by DEC and APA.
5. Continued work with DEC to finalize an updated MOU, which will address areas of critical communication and project development.

The UCI World Cup Mountain Bike Series is set to return to Whiteface Mountain next year, and it’s unclear how or if the course will be modified for next year’s downhill event.

Response from Orda, September 30, 2025

ORDA responded to our request for comment the day following publication, providing their side of the story. While ORDA acknowledged that they began work before receiving the final DEC approval, they claim it “was a procedural oversight reflecting misalignment between operational deadlines and regulatory processes,” according to Darcy Norfolk Rowe, Director of Communications.

“As we balance our mandates, including bringing sport events [and] community impact to our region [while] working within effective environmental stewardship, some of our teams’ processes got ahead of other processes. We are working closely internally and with DEC to ensure that doesn’t happen in the future.”

ORDA also highlighted that most of the trees removed from the mountain were dead, diseased, or hazardous, and that the removal conformed to DEC’s principles of environmental stewardship.

Will the public be able to ride the new trail?

The mountain biking public wants to know: how much of this race course will remain standing after the event? And will we get to ride it?

Unfortunately, “Key features such as banks, berms, and shaping are temporary and will be restored after the event as required by DEC,” according to Norfolk. “Some work was completed on pre-existing permitted bike trails, and we are working with DEC to confirm exactly what will remain.”

Whiteface Mountain was previously home to a downhill bike park, but the bike park closed permanently after the 2019 season. Ever since Whiteface was confirmed as the site of at least two World Cup downhill races, rumors of a new bike park have gained momentum. Unfortunately, “We currently have no business plan to open a public bike park at Whiteface. DEC has not yet finalized mountain biking guidance,” according to Norfolk. “We remain committed to working with DEC and APA to establish a clear framework. To support this, we recently posted an Environmental Planning Manager role to strengthen compliance and collaboration for current and future projects.”

We are proud to host the World Cup, bringing global visibility and economic benefit to the Adirondacks while inspiring new generations of mountain bikers.

Darcy Norfolk Rowe, Director of Communications, ORDA

Lake Placid and ORDA are proud to host the MTB World Cup

Norfolk went on to address inaccuracies published by the Adirondack Explorer, specifically claims that the event was “unconstitutional.” Norfolk noted that mountain bike trails are specifically allowed in the 1996 Unit Management Plan amendment, and that “the course is temporary and specific to the October 4th event; it will not be open to the public at any time and will be restored following the competition. It is located within an intensive use area where mountain biking is an approved activity through the unit management plan process.”

“We are proud to host the World Cup, bringing global visibility and economic benefit to the Adirondacks while inspiring new generations of mountain bikers,” Norfolk concluded.

Updated with comments from ORDA at 7:38am MDT, September 30, 2025.