Wednesday, September 24
Taughannock Falls SP from Rice Hill lot
Hike report by Casey
On Wednesday, September 24, sixteen hikers and 3 dogs met at the Rice Hill parking lot for an explore of the Taughannock Park trails. After wandering down the Rice Hill trails, the group crossed 89, walked through the cabin area and along the beach. Most of the group had never been through this section of
Taughannock.
We crossed 89 again, walked through the camping area and up the North Rim trail. At the top of the Rim trail we crossed Jacksonville road and looped through the Cataract trail. This trail was also new to most hikers. We were able to cross the final small stream on this occasion due to the dry weather.
We then hiked partway down the north rim trail, crossed the Park road and went back to our cars on the North Taughannock trails. We finished in a little over 2 hours.
Saturday, September 27
Cayuga Trail from Freese Rd.
Report by Jim
Thirteen hikers met at the Cornell Community Gardens on Freese Rd in the Town of Dryden for a trail maintenance day of our adopted section of the Cayuga Trail. The Ithaca Hikers currently maintain the Cayuga Trail between Freese Rd and Route 13 on the north side of the creek.
This was actually the first trail workday we’ve been able to do in 2025, as the first two days I scheduled were both rained out earlier in the year.
Today’s work project was a re-route of a trail section that ran along the creek bank, and which was quickly eroding away into nothingness, creating a severe hike hazard for hikers and trail runners.
A re-route around that section of footpath was previously marked with engineer tape by Ithaca Hiker Steve Eaton and CTC Trails chair David Priester. The re-route takes hikers away from the creek and the associated views of that area into a more forested area, but it could not be helped as the creek shoreline along the eroding section of footpath is lined with thick bramble.
Many hands made for short work today, with the hikers equipped with weed eaters and hand saws and nippers made relatively short work of creating a new footpath. There are a couple of larger blow down trees that still need to be chain sawed to be removed from the new footpath, but the CTC sawyers have been advised of that work.
The re-route is temporarily marked by orange engineer’s tape. We will eventually get another work crew back into the area to properly blaze the new trail section.
As the work crew returned to our cars, some of those with weed eaters who still had working batteries managed to trim back some of the undergrowth along the trail closer to Freese RD.
A post work detail gathering at Hopshire was well-attended.
For those on today’s work crew, I left the sign in sheet for today’s event at home; see me on hikes over the next week or so in order to complete the sign in sheets I need to send to Cornell.
Speaking of Cornell, I’ll cut and paste their recent email to me about the upcoming trail volunteer’s appreciation day in October. Anyone wishing to attend their event will need to RSVP. See the following:
Greetings, Cornell Botanic Gardens Volunteers,
You are invited to our annual Volunteer Appreciation Event on Friday, October 17, from 1 – 3 pm. As in years past, this is our way of saying thank you for your hard work and dedication towards all our endeavors! We’ll gather in the Nevin Welcome Center’s Ten Eyck room for light refreshments, service recognitions, and opportunities to connect with each other and staff. Join us!
Please RSVP by Friday, October 10th at this link: https://forms.gle/3MhBnG9z1hDm8eu1A
Sunday, September 28
The “Chunks” Hike, Stone House Rd., Enfield
Hike report by Nina F.
25 hikers and two dogs met along Stone House Road in Enfield on a stunning day – sunny with temperatures rising into the 70s during our hike – for the fun and diverse hike that LeighAnn and Jim dubbed “The Chunks” hike due to the variety of terrains and landscapes we traversed.
The initial walk was a 1.2 mile easy, wooded loop trail known as “Margaret’s Woods,” for the late property owner Margaret Bald, who had donated the land to the Finger Lakes Land Trust in 2022.
From there we walked a connector trail leading through meadows full of senescing goldenrods and purple asters at their peak, and then through a lovely hardwood forecast down to catch the FLT. The FLT’s Rim Trail took us along a pretty, winding path that eventually overlooked Robert Treman State Park’s Gorge Trail, giving us glimpses of the river and some of the falls below.
After crossing the upper parking lot of the Park, we made our way back to the cars along the CCC trail that followed the stream for about a half mile, and finally retraced our steps through the connector trail back to the cars.
