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Sunday November 10, 2024 - Finger Lakes and other connecting trails, Shindagin Hollow State Forest - Brooktondale NY (Ithaca) - 7.2 miles, 860 feet elevation gain

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The weather forecast wasn't great for today.  But the rain started later in the day the farther East we looked. So I looked at trails that were East of us.  This area, about 85 miles SE of our house, was someplace we'd never been. When we arrived it was a very steep initial climb from the road up to the top of the ravine the road was in.  There was one other hefty climb in the first mile or 2 then a lot of ridge walking with less severe ups and downs.  In addition to being brutally steep at first going up the side of a hill, it then went sideways along a steep slope but lacked any sort of flat shelf for the trail so every step was uneven and challenging plus very rooty.  Thankfully, after the big initial climb which made up the stem of this balloon hike, conditions improved on the loop itself.  There was a good variety of environment from super deep crunchy fall leafy hardwood areas to pine needle covered pine tree areas.  There was also a fair amount of distance along a few cr
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Thursday October 31, 2024 - Fairport Reservoirs Trail, Boughton Park - Victor NY (Rochester) - 3.1 miles, 150 feet elevation gain

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Just another chance to get a qualifying hike in after work.  Once time falls back an hour this will be nearly impossible for months.  Scenery and conditions were very good as was the tranquility on this Halloween afternoon.
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Wednesday October 30, 2024 -Mendon Ponds Meadow Trail - Mendon Center NY (Rochester) - 3.5 miles, 150 feet elevation gain

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We both took this day off.  We celebrate October 30th as our anniversary because it marked the date of our first date. Our wedding anniversary is in November and was many years later than when we met of course.  There were a bunch of errands including voting but for the hike I chose a place that was in the same direction as the bagel shop we were headed to for breakfast for anyway. Mendon Ponds park is large rural park in Monroe county (same county as Rochester).  Though it's pretty close to where we live it isn't a park we go to very often.  It was a good fit for this Wednesday morning since it wouldn't be busy. The trail was really nice with quite a bit of wetland and pond facing trail and also some areas that really looked like an African Savannah.  The leaves are mostly down from the trees but there are still hints of color to spruce things up.  It felt like a great peaceful start to our quiet special day off. The deer (send to last picture) was very a strange encounter
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Sunday October 27, 2024 - Chestnut Ridge County Park - Orchard Park NY (Buffalo) - 6 miles, 600 feet elevation gain

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Chestnut Ridge is one of the most talked about hiking areas in Western New York.  It's most famous for the 'eternal flame', a natural gas seep which feeds a small flame that people relight in the rare times that it goes out.  I've always wanted to visit the park but it's basically in Buffalo and I knew it would be pretty busy so we've avoided it until now. Since we got a nice early start on this Sunday morning I got on I-90 and made short work of the 70 mile drive.  The park's front parking lot was pretty full.  There were a few other lots farther back but we parked in that first lot and walked in from there.  Thankfully, it quickly became obvious that 90% of the people were there for the eternal flame or to a lesser degree maybe just a generic road walk through the scenic grounds.   We departed the paved park road and instantly we were all alone on the 'Boy Scout Orienteering' trail.  This trail weaved up and down through a few different variations
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Friday October 25, 2024 - Fishers park - Near Fishers NY - 3.2 miles, about 200 feet elevation gain

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This was a chance to get another weeknight hike in and in fact is the location we originally planned to go to last Wednesday.  This delightful little park is one piece of land but it's fairly crisply divided into 2 landscapes.  There is a low lying section with a lot of wetlands and stream side trail and there is a very hilly hardwood tree covered part.  Especially right now with the last bits of fall colors spicing the view up, I'm a lot more excited by the hilly area than the flat area.  Getting to our arbitrary 3 mile minimum for a 'qualifying' hike requires hiking the ENTIRETY of the perimeter of this park and even then it comes up a tiny bit short of 3 miles. With that in mind, we started off going up the very thickly covered hill leading up from the ever popular Pickle ball court.  We then walked the yellow trail which isn't very long but, unlike most of the trails, this beautiful trail goes down a ravine and circles a scenic knob with a picnic table on it.  I
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Sunday October 20, 2024 - Black Creek Park- Near Chili NY - 4.7 miles, about 200 feet elevation gain

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I'm mot remembering exactly why we ended up at this hike.  I think I just wanted something that wasn't super far away since we didn't get a good early start to the day. The trail network at this park is pretty extensive  At some points we were along creeks, at other points it was a lot of mowed paths with wetland brush on both sides.  I wouldn't say it was the most remarkably scenic area but the park is large and you can put together whatever size walk you need there. The park was very clean and I appreciated that the roads almost all had a little trail that paralleled them but on the other side of a brush hedge so it never felt like you were walking along a road.
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