Saturday May 30 - Letchworth State Park Trail #18 near Castile NY - About 3.6 miles, 400 feet elevation gain

Letchworth state park was someplace we visited last August.  I just noticed today that all the mentions in that post I made of the state park name I has misspelled as Lechworth.  It's Letchworth!

On the way to the park I wanted to try a bakery in Geneseo which was on the way.  This turned out to be a lovely place.  Though they are 30 miles from Rochester, they have bagels brought in from Rochester's very well liked bagel place, Balsam Bagels.  Brian and I both got a french toast bagel toasted with cream cheese.  When I saw the lovely baked goods they had I had to get a cookie too.  The owner of the bakery started chatting with us as she was frosting cinnamon rolls.  The conversation was really good and she also gave us a cinnamon roll.  So our light breakfast didn't end up being so light but we joyfully inhaled a lot of carbs back in the car.

 Letchworth state park is a very busy place.  It's easily the most talked about state park in central NY and it's a very large park. When you drive in, the visitors center is 15 miles down the park road!!  Normally we stay out of these obvious crowded areas but I had been wanting to do this trial for a while. Most visitors to Letchworth go straight to the big overlooks and mill around on the viewing platforms enjoying the impressive chasm that the river runs through.  This trail doesn't go there.  So between being early in the day and an obscure trail with a boring name, we didn't see a single hiker or park visitor of any kind other than a few people in their cars at the start of the trail.

 The hike had a fair bit of up and down, a fair bit of mud (it rained heavily the night before) and a lot of scenery. It ends in an unusual spot where the river bends sharply.  So for the last half mile or so of the trail the river is both on your left and on your right as you walk a little spine of land out to a point.  A very interesting layout.







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