Saturday January 14th 2023 - Oakley Corners State Forest - Near Endicott NY - 7.2 miles, about 1000 feet of elevation gain

After a long string of Sunday hikes Brian finally has an entire weekend off and we both get Monday off.  This hike appealed to me because of its length and elevation gain.  The Finger Lakes Trail has a lot of good long hikes and elevation gain in spots also but parts of it are closed in the winter because it passes through private land easements with hunting seasons etc.  Plus, we had an entire long weekend to fill so the over 2 hour long drive wasn't off-putting to me.  The weather yesterday was snowing lightly and, somewhat unusually, the temperature was predicted to be nearly constant from dawn to dusk.  This turned out to be accurate.  It snowed lightly almost all day long and the temperature didn't go below 18 or above maybe 21 at any point along our drive.  We wore a thermal base layer, hats, gloves or mittens and for me, a scarf.  I have a dark green fuzzy Columbia shirt that I only wear when I'm going to be out in the cold for a long time.  I don't know why but I always associate that shirt with special good times since I use it for such a special purpose.

When we arrived at the trailhead, several miles off of the nearest state highway (which itself was very very quiet) we were surprised and maybe disappointed that there were at least 15 vehicles parked there and a fair amount of people coming and going and driving around.  It seemed very odd because everything we'd experienced along the way was very quiet.  It turned out there was a local hiking club hike there.  There were using the North side of Oakley Corners (North of the road we parked on) and we used the South Side trails.  We briefly saw just 2 people on that said and only at the start.

Most NY state forests are basically land preserves.  There is a sign that tells you it protects x number of acres (usually a few thousand) and many but not all have maybe a single blazed trail, often an old fire road.  THIS stae forest is relatively developed.  No campgrounds or backpacker shelters or anything like that but quite a nicely laid out and numbered trail system.  We used Alltrails to find this collection which visually looked like 2 loops trails connected by some non looping sections.  There were a few inches of snow on the ground but it wasn't particularly difficult to hike through.  There wasn't much wind and, considering the low temps, it was hard to imagine a nicer winter day.

Photos from the hike are a bit lackluster. It was cold, we didn't like taking our gloves off, and with snow everywhere there wasn't any color.  Just trust us it was more varied and interesting than it looks.  For the majority of the hike we were the first footprints in the snow.  That and the length of the hike helped make it feel very special to me.





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