Road Trips and Hike Reports

This hike had such glowing reviews on Alltrails and some of them mentioned that it wasn't very wet or muddy and it was very well marked and beautiful. After a nice long dry spell we had a wet few days and going someplace minimally muddy was appealing.  I think the Alltrails comments were well founded.  There were a lot of slightly muddy spots but that is as much because this section of the conservation trail is very popular with mountain bikes as anything.  The trail started out with a good little climb along a gorge over a creek (Hunters creek I guess).  While I was glad to be out on the trail, it was pretty warm and humid and part of me wasn't really into hiking.  I kind of power walked up the hill leaving Brian a bit behind. As the hike progressed my mood improved somewhat.  The trail mostly was near the creek and eventually was impressively high above the creek but there were spots where the trail was out in the open briefly and at the point where we turned around it came

Same trailhead as June 12th.  Headed out of the parking lot on the trail that touches the parking lot instead of heading across the street towards McCoord Woods.  Either direction is the Crescent trail. I honestly expected June 12th's part of the Crescent trail to be an outlier with its steep hills and constant ups and downs but this direction was nearly as hilly and woodsy.  We even tried a little side trail labeled Allan's Walk.  Allan's walk followed a marshy creek with a lot of mud but was worth checking out once.  After rejoining the Crescent trail we headed further out until the trail came to an area with some heavy equipment and houses. Not sure what happens past that but we'll probably explore more next time. The end of the trail for us so far

This was an interesting hike.  After weeks and weeks of challenging hikes every weekend we wanted something more modest for our Sunday.  The weather was perfect and I made French Toast at home before we headed out.  The Alltrails app provides your navigation app GPS coordinates but there isn't really a good way to communicate actual directions to the trailheads.  This one is JUST South of a State Penitentiary and a lot of navigation systems/programs think the prison's road system pops through to the State Forest.  If it ever did, it isn't allowed to pass through it now.  So we had to be a little creative and drive a 5 mile loop around from the north side of the prison around some county roads to approach from the south.  There was only 1 vehicle at the end of the nearly 3 mile long bumpy gravel road  and we thought we'd have a super quiet experience but by the time we were heading back from the just over 2 miles we walked in one way, there were about 10 people heading

This was a random find after deciding that none of the hikes we saw in the 25 Easy Day Hikes  book were appealing to us at that moment.  Alltrails came through with an amzingly interesting walk very near our house. This trail was a lollipop that started in a town that prides itself of their trails, Perinton.  Perinton calls itself trail town USA and this trail is just one of many.  I'd heard of the Crescent trail but assumed it was one of the many rails to trails projects near us.  They all have their charms but rails to trails are universally almost completely flat and usually just long straight stretches.  I don't know the history of the Crescent trail yet but it somehow weaves its way through little gaps between different plots of private property and goes over and through some interesting little patches of suburban hills and woods.  It reminded me of a very posh trail we walked on years ago in Bellevue Washington. There was an interesting Adirondack chair provided by ROC

This was a return to the hike I did solo a few weeks ago .  Since I had such a hard time following the trail before I put Brian in charge of managing looking at the Alltrails maps through the many junctions.  We still ended up doing one side of the closer to the car half of the figure 8 twice but it was less painful than my attempt.  It was also still a beautiful walk and very quiet despite a busy parking lot.  I think a lot of people just walk the gravel road at the base of the park. After the hike we made our fist outdoor dining visit.  Core Life was delicious and healthy and it was nice not eating in the car again. Far from a flattering shot but I guess I was pretty into my food!

The day certainly started of inauspiciously.  We headed out early hoping to repeat last week's delicious breakfast from Sweet Arts bakery in Geneseo.  Unfortunately, they don't open until 9 am on Sundays and it was barely 8:30 when we arrived so we had a McBreakfast instead.  Then we headed off to fine Bully Hill which was written up in the 50 Hikes in Western NY book with seemingly detailed directions starting from Arkport.  The directions said to head West on Almond Valley road which it said intersected NY-36 in Arkport.  We didn't find that road (or it's county route designation CR-76).  So we kept going south through Arkport until we got to I-86 (which wasn't very far) but then u-turned to pass through Arkport again to see if we missed something. The best we could come up with was West Ave which by mileage was at the right spot.  So we headed west on that for the precisely stated 5.6 miles where Bush Road was supposed to be.  but instead of gravel Bush road, we

A revisit to the same trail system we did on April 28th .  I was really impressed with this close by gem before and my feelings were reinforced on this second visit.  It's a really interesting walk and the loop we do goes along a ravine (or Gully if you will) one way and an attractive wooded hill going the other way.  It was a lot less muddy this time which was great.