The route heads east through the town of Brighton, providing mountain views of Adirondack Park.

Roughly 0.75 miles (1.21 km) into the county, NY 86 leaves the lakeshore and turns northeastward toward the small hamlet of Ray Brook.

Farther east, the highway travels through the Clifford R. Pettis Memorial Forest before arriving in the village of Lake Placid as Saranac Avenue.

As Main, NY 86 runs through the village and along Mirror Lake as the major tourist thoroughfare, passing numerous businesses and the sites of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics.

[3] Outside of Lake Placid, NY 86 enters the town of Wilmington, home of the Olympic Ski Center at Whiteface Mountain.

[5] What is now NY 86 from Paul Smiths to Jay via Saranac Lake and Lake Placid was originally part of the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway, an auto trail extending across the North American continent from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean.

[7] NY 3 remained in place up to the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York when it was rerouted onto its modern alignment through the North Country.