Saturday May 2 - Harriet Hollister Spencer Recreation Area - Near Springwater NY - About 3.5 miles, 377' Elevation gain

As if the name of the recreation area wasn't long enough, the official Alltrails name for this hike is:
Bear Cub, Cannonball, Fox, Raccoon and Chalet Loop
I hoped this would be another quiet beautiful walk as we've been pretty lucky at lining up. While there was some natural beauty to be had for sure, this hike was surprisingly busy for being several miles off any state highway and actually a bit off of a dirt road. And whoever plotted this trail on Alltrails clearly knew the park very well because while there is some logic to the geography of the path (staying near the outside edge of the hill with more dramatic views), the path required to get there involved literally a couple dozen junctions in 3.5 miles.

Equally frustrating but not something the Alltrails user could have helped with was that it had been very wet. So even though Saturday was a wonderful sunny warm day, it was less than 48 hours after the opposite of beautiful and sunny and warm. In spots it was terribly muddy.

So this hike was not really enjoyed. I had to have my phone out almost all the time to follow the rat race like turns. The conditions weren't great because of recent weather. And there were kind of a lot of people around so we had to put our masks on about 7 or 8 times.

 On the upside, I wore the really huge 80 liter backpack and it was no trouble. Also, we're going to try to backpack on Memorial day weekend. So that decision is hopefully done.



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