Wednesday, September 16
Trail Maintenance day
Report by Jim
This fall we tried something new by scheduling a trail maintenance day on a Wednesday instead of a Saturday.
While we did have seven hikers meet for today’s work, we will be returning to scheduling future regular trail work for weekends in order to get a bigger turn-out.
Because of today’s smaller turn out I chose to not split the group up as I normally do and instead focus on one section of the Cayuga Trail. The hikers focused on pruning back the very overgrown part of our trail section between Route 13 and the new bridge that Ithaca Hikers assisted Cayuga Trails Club in building a couple of years ago. Because our spring work day earlier this year focused on a trail re-route, today’s trail section has not been cut back in a year, and it shows by the amount of overgrowth.
We also re-blazed today’s section of trail as there were many very faded blazes or long trail segments missing blazes. I mis-judged how many hikers are needed for that task; in the future we will have at least two people re-blazing the trail on our work days.
After the group returned to our cars we met at Shippers and Brewers for lunch.
Today’s hikers agreed that we will hold another trail workday this fall when there’s a hike that has been cancelled so that we can try to complete some of the tasks we couldn’t finish today.
Saturday, September 19
Sims-Jennings Preserve at Cayuga Cliffs, Lansing
Hike report by Nina F.
Seventeen hikers and two dogs met to hike at Sims-Jennings Preserve in Lansing. Although there was only one first-time hiker with the Ithaca Hiking Club, we had many people who don’t join us often or hadn’t hiked with the group in a while, so it was especially nice to see some less familiar faces. It was a lovely day, with mild temperatures, abundant fall colors, and plenty of sunshine.
Sims-Jennings has several interconnected trails featuring a mix of landscapes and views. We started with the relatively flat out-and-back section through the woods, which crosses a small bridge over a pretty stream. Next, we walked around the large fields, which were absolutely stunning in their fall colors. We also saw numerous monarchs and enjoyed several views of Cayuga Lake from the top of the fields.
From there, we took the small loop overlooking the gorge and lake before finishing with the larger loop, which is quite steep—first downhill and then back up! Hikers had the option to depart before the final loop, but most stayed for the longer route. We wrapped up the hike at 11:45.
Sunday, September 20
Black Diamond Trail from Gorge Road
No report was submitted for today’s hike.