Road Trips and Hike Reports

The Ontario Pathways consist of a network of 2 rails to trails projects that intersect and are managed together.  We actually visited this same trailhead near where the pathway crosses US-20 and NY-5 (those 2 roads are 1 physical road in that area) but this was a longer walk than the first time.  The weather was calm and mild and like the day before, the temperatures were just cold enough to keep everything dry.  The pathway gets differing amounts of traffics in different spots but overall, the most well packed part of this walk was less traveled than most of the waterfall hike from the day before.  Especially as we headed farther North from the starting point, the trail got less and less well trampled which added somewhat to the exercise factor. The trail mostly follows a beautiful creek or river.  I'm not sure what the name of the waterway was but it's more a background feature than a roaring river.  Also, the trail is on enough of an embankment that you aren't ever re

Its been a little lacking in terms of 'real' hikes lately but we finally got out for a good one on this 3 day post Valentines day weekend.  This hike came recommended to us by our friends Scott and Tom over a really nice dinner out with them at The Cub Room in Rochester Saturday. The plan for the day was to get in a good walk or hike if possible and then explore Ithaca in the afternoon.  The state park is only a few miles from Ithaca.  The drive down NY-96 was quiet and relaxing as it almost always is. We used the 50 Hikes In Central New York book to find this hike which was great because as we hiked from the off the beaten path trailhead we started at we went by the 'obvious' hike starting spot for the vast majority of people that just walk along the bottom of the gorge and both the parking and the gorge itself were way too busy for our tastes. Our loop started at the top of the bluff, went 1.5 miles along the North Rim of the canyon including going down to river