Sunday March 21, 2021 - Triad Trail - Hammondsport NY (on Keuka Lake in the Finger Lakes) - 3.5 miles - about 1000 feet of elevation gain

 Neither of were exactly eager to go hike Sunday but the weather was beautiful and well into the 60’s so we couldn’t not go.  I had been wanting to try this system of trails which was written about in the Finger Lakes trail conference magazine I receive.  The brief description only promised plenty of elevation gain and said that the Junebug trail (one of the 3 that made up the 3 sided U of trail that along with a road walk could form a loop) was originally an Eagle Scout project and mentioned the Curtiss air museum being very nearby.  So off we headed to the museum to find the trail head.

The Junebug trail started off going through the town’s compost drop-off site and then headed steeply uphill.  The trail crossed the old dirt road several times in rapid succession which Brian thought was dumb since you could sometimes see the next blaze up the road yet the trail routed you on gentler little switchbacks on both sides of the road.  That part soon gave way to a more ‘traily’ section that continued steeply up hill quit a while.  Eventually we reached the ridge of the hill and had a more level walk with views down the hill and across to Keuka Lake.  The scenery was very good and the conditions were great with warm air and mostly dry trails but also probably 1500 feet of snowy trail to walk on, almost certainly the last packed snow we will walk on for many months here.  Given our modest goals, we did good getting this much elevation in. We only walked the Junebug trail and a small portion of whatever the ridge trail was that had different blaze colors than the Junebug. Someday we will come back and do the full 3 connected trails and walk back along the quiet road to make a loop of it.