Author: shesse

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Wednesday Sept 31

Stevens Suspension Bridge, Forest Home, east into Monkey Run Natural Area

A work crew from Cauuga Trails Club recently cut a new trail along Fall Creek east of Freese Road and we wanted to check it out

This required spending quite a bit of time walking along the edge of some big fields  —  since it was cloudy and not hot, this was pleasant

Completely by chance, we bumped into inactive hiker Laurie standing at the edge of the road with two grand chilldren (she lives right there) and she pointed us to the new trail head

Most of our dogs won’t walk on this open metal decking

Verdict on the new trail:  Very nice.  This opens up a third distinct walk for us that starts with the suspension bridge at Flat Rock.  Entirely by coincidence, the newest walk took almost exactly two hours.  Rained very lightly most of the way back  —  very lovely effect.

The suspension bridge has gotten more and more shaky to cross in the years we’ve been using it  —  when a group crosses at the same time now, it almost seems dangerous,  We broke up into smaller groups for the crossing to play it safe.

Official head count:  25H, three D

You can see Jack V’s photos online here

 

Thursday Sept 1

Kayak and canoe outing, Cayuga Lake inlet

Beautiful sunny morning, but quite breezy  —  put in at Cass Park and paddled south down the inlet along Route 13A   —  wind at our back  —  I’d never done this stretch of water before and I found it a little boring, but Tiger liked it  —  came back around the other side of Inlet Island, past the Boatyard Grill  —  more interesting IMO  —  hit somewhat rough water paddling back into the wind  —  great fun all around.

We had eight kayaks and a canoe in our group.  The most interesting kayak was Anne’s, which folds up and snaps together.  Quite seaworthy once it’s assembled.  The two canoe paddlers put in to Cascadilla Creek near Hickey’s music store and made their way out Linderman Creek to meet us.

 

Sunday Sept 4

Lindsay Parsons Preserve, W Danby

The goldenrod was stunted and only some of the plants were blooming, so we missed the peak display this year, but it was still satisfying

There are several lovely ponds here  —  water very low

A big part of this hike is in the woods  —  I can usually rely on our nature photographer Jack V to get some woodland shots but even he took a pass this time  —  these are delightful woods but I guess you need to join us if you want to see them

It started to warm up when we hit the last leg of the walk  —  I was out front and a couple of the dogs up front began to get stung, though the bees left the people alone as far as I know

Official head count:  37H, eight D

You can see Jack V’s photos online here

 

Monday Sept 5, Labor Day

Lick Brook, and mojito get-together at Hobit’s afterwards

Great relaxed and lazy vibe at Hobit’s, delightful way to wrap up our summer hiking program

No get-together at Hobit’s is complete without a display of tumbling by her son Jake

Official head count:  40H, thee D

Check out Jack V’s photos online here

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Wednesday Aug 24

Bald Hill Road, Danby SF  —  road walk

Even people who don’t like road walks in general really like this one.  It runs through Danby SF the whole time  —  never any traffic, decent walking surface, excellent scenery, beautiful lighting in the woods when it’s sunny

Official head count:  16H, one D

You can see Jack V’s photos online here

 

Saturday Aug 27

Taughannock Falls SP  —  hike, swim and hot dog cook-out

Here we are at the renovated falls look-out (very little water).  If the young woman on the left with twin braids and short shorts looks out of place, you’re right, she wasn’t with us.  But in fact our hiking ladies looked like this themselves 45-50 years ago  —  we circulated old photos of our active hikers earlier in the year and everyone looked very cute and great.

It was lovely at the lake-front under the trees, not hot at all, and almost no one went swimming

Official head count:  37H, four D

 

Sunday Aug 28

Hammond Hill SF north of Star Stanton Road, with Jack V

Warm morning but this trail is exceptionally shady and dark and there was a little breeze, so we didn’t get too hot

Canaan Road crossing  —  one of the few spots with any sunlight

Back at the cars  —  you can get an idea of the gloom under the trees from the background.

Official head count:  24H, four D

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Wednesday Aug 17

Treman SP on the FLT

This is one of our steepest hikes, and it can be a bit of a grind on the wrong morning  —  but it wasn’t hot or very sunny, and we had a great time.  I think the woods along this trail are more attractive than average, and the lighting is often really nice, as it was this time.

Official head count:  25H, three D

 

Saturday Aug 20

Potato Hill SF, Caroline

Woods extremely dark  —  I didn’t attempt any photos.  Here we are emerging on Blackman Hill Road:

Supposedly you can see Pennsylvania in the far distance in the background here.  Charlie’s pointing to a sundial that’s become a tourist stop

On the way back from walking in the second woods, which are also too dark for me to try any photos

The fields were full of grasshoppers  —  a pleasure to find the grass cut so short

Official head count:  24H, four D

You can see Annie’s photos here.

 

Sunday Aug 21

The Pinnacles look-out from the north leg of the Abbott Loop, Damby SF

We have pretty good luck at not getting rained on when there’s a storm coming at us, but our luck ran out this time  —  it started to rain fairly hard right after we turned back from the look-out, and it rained the whole way back.  Interestingly, it didn’t rain at all at the weather stations north of town before noon  —  we were just hiking on the wrong trail.  Fabulous atmospheric conditions on the first half of the hike, extremely dark and sultry.  Some of the hikers brought along rain gear but almost everyone walked back in their shirts  —  this was definitely a group that likes walking in the rain.

Official head count:  20H, two D

********************

With all the news from the Olympics wrapping up, it seems like a good time to mention that we have our own champion sprinter and long jumper who hikes with us almost every weekend, Tracey  —  “One of the best athletes in SUNY Cortland history,” according to her citation page at SUNY Cortland’s athletic hall of fame site  —  she still holds school records in five events 30 years after she graduated  —  if she’d attended Cornell or Binghamton, her best time in the outdoors 100m would put her in second place among all-time record holders at both those schools  —  in all, Tracey won five individual national titles and earned 13 All-America honors.  It’s really fun to have such a great athlete as a hiking companion  – —  she has wonderful energy and enthusiasm/

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Wednesday Aug 10

Cornell natural areas walk  —  Cascadilla Gorge and Beebe Lake

I’m not sure walking around the Cornell campus officially qualifies as “hiking”*  —  but it made a nice change for our midweek hikers, and we all had a lot of fun

The Cascadilla gorge trail was closed for repair for a number of years, and some of our hikers hadn’t been on it since it reopened fairly recently.  A few of the repairs are a little heavy-handed, but in general the trail looks as good as ever.  It’s really just as nice in its own way as our other better-known gorge walks like Buttermilk or Treman

We had to cross the campus to get from Cascadilla gorge to Beebe Lake  —  the two natural areas both seem completely wild and it’s hard to believe there’s a highly developed infrastructure immediately around them.

Part of this walk was to get something delicious at Collegetown Bagels as we were finishing up  —  but then we stopped to look at the newly opened Klarman Hall on the arts quad  —  nice air conditioning  —  we had our snack there instead  —  discovered there’s a machine to get free ice water

Official head count:  22H, one D

More photos online:

Me

Annie

Jack V

 

Saturday Aug 13

Upper Buttermilk SP and La Tourelle

Sweatiest hike in quite a while, thanks to very high humidity  —  luckily it was just bearable in the shade, and most of this walk is shady

I don’t know if our hikers would be so high spirited if it was hot like this every weekend, but we all pretty much shrugged the heat off and had a great time

That’s not to say everyone put in the full two hours  —  two-thirds of the group called it quits early  —  here’s the group who persevered to the end

Official head count:  27H, one D

You can see Jack V’s online photos here

 

Sunday Aug 14

Monkey Run Natural Area, south side of Fall Creek (Varna)

Official head count:  32H, three D

Check out Jack V’s online photos here.

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Wednesday Aug 3

Black Diamond Trail south from Taughannock Creek

They’ve been working on this trail project it seems like forever  —  we decided to try it out last year one time when we were hiking nearby in Taughannock  —  horrible experience  —  the trail surface was unwalkable

They’ve made a lot of progress since then  —  the north end of the trail is actually delightful now, with a finely crushed stone surface and nice landscaping

Unfortunately, this lovely smooth surface stops quite soon and we had to spend most of the walk on small packed gravel  —  borderline uncomfortable after you’ve been on it for a while

We walked south for an hour  —  the trail takes you through some nice countryside, nothing spectacular but pleasant and generally not built up  —  there are several road crossings where you could probably park and do a walk (I didn’t actually verify this …. forgot to)

New bridge over Willow Creek, which is very attractive when you look over the edge at it

There are lots of fields on both sides of the trail along the way —  here’s what the three hikers above were looking at

Official head count:  26H, seven D

More photos:

Annie

Jack V

 

Saturday Aug 6

Connecticut Hill  —  Rowell Hill to Lloyd Stark, with Dave B

Very oppressive at 9 am in town  —  delightful out in the deep woods  —  a little breezy, still damp from the early rain, and not hot at all

You’d never be able to guess it from the photos, but we spent most of the walk in deep shade under the trees  —  this is one of two look-outs where we were suddenly flooded with light

These floods of sunlight can be a little intense  —  check out the squinty faces on Tiger and June

Dave had warned us the hike might run a bit over two hours but he got us back to the cars in 1:58:46  —  one minute and 14 sec short of perfection  —  this guy is brilliant at hike-pacing, IMO  —  not the first time he’s timed one of these sprawling Conn Hill hikes so closely

Official head count:  16H, five D

 

Sunday Aug 7

Six Mile Creek, south side rim trail

Beautiful low-humidity morning

When we got to the home stretch, I started to think maybe I could come even closer than Dave did the day before to wrapping the hike up in two hours precisely  —  alas, didn’t  —  we finished in 1:58, two minutes early.

Official head count:  28H, six D

Check out Annie’s photos online here.