Sunday January 1st 2023 - Several locations along Lake Ontario and the town of Oswego NY - About 4 miles, no elevation gain

This was an adventure day.  Basically we just needed to get out of the house and the actual destination wasn't really important.  My initial thought was to drive along Lake Ontario.  Despite it being just 25 miles away and not uncommonly in a distant view when running around Rochester or the close in suburbs, it's surprisingly to really see it.  Even one of my favorite roads which I think of as being on the short of the lake, NY-104, isn't actually within a mile of the lake except maybe as it crosses over Irondequoit Bay right in Rochester.

Our first stop was a county park, B. Forman Park in Williamson.  There wasn't a trail network really but we did walk the mile or so of path from the parking lot, along the windy cold lake front and back.

We proceeded back along Lake Road (which DOES run right next to the lake) Eastwards towards Oswego.  We drove out the end of isolate Sodus Point (disappointingly, a cul-de-sac full of houses with no public access) then south on NY-14 a bit and then East on a small road that parallels NY-104 but runs a little farther North.  I noticed a sign for Wolcott Falls as we went through aptly named Wolcott.  I turned around and figured we had to see this.

Wolcott falls is a good sized drop where Wolcott Creek (what else?) drops over a ledge (Wolcott cliff probably) and then races towards its ultimate destination, Lake Ontario.  There is an overlook at the top of the falls and a curving sloping trail around the endge of a bowl to get to the base of the falls.  The entire walk was probably barely half a mile round trip.

 

 

Next up I remembered very distinctly how much we enjoyed our lunch at Fajita Grill one time on the way somewhere.  There are only 2 locations and they are within a few miles of each other.  When we went the first time it was peak Covid and we went through the line, masked of course, then had to eat in the car.  It was nice being able to go in and sit down this time and while kind of expensive, the food was as delicious as I remember.  This was in the suburban part of Oswego.

We made our way downtown and found a river walk.  Oswego is a town which straddles the river of the same name.  We've driven over the river a few times but it didn't really call attention to itself.  This made it very surprising when we walked along the river because it was an absolute raging torrent. In spots the water level was just a few inches from the concrete walkway's top and all along the walk the water was deep and frighteningly fast.  There were fascinating wave effects where a bride's support would have a dry spot that was clearly lower than the water level because the water created little eddy currents that sent the water out from the support.  The walk goes practically from the river's outlet into Lake Ontario up to a wide semi-circle of a dam.  Along the way you actually walk over some very old hydro-electric spillway structures on a wooden bridge.  It's very rustic and raw feeling in spots.  Like most waterfalls out here in the Northeast, this one once powered an array of businesses including a large corn starch plant.

Between the river walk and the overall cool feel of the town we decided we wanted to come back to Oswego.  So we have a 2 night stay planned for a few weeks after I return from my Japan trip.  I look forward to exploring it more. 

That was the last nature stop on our tour that day.  It was nice filling the day with a variety of stops and not having a set agenda.