Road Trips and Hike Reports

Calling today's hike a winter hike might be a bit of a stretch compared to January or February's likely weather but it was in the 40's and misty.  It was supposed to be VERY wet almost all over Western and Central NY today (half an inch of rain just during the day) but it ended up being mostly just misty.  There really weren't even any showers to speak of just, cool and damp. Since we had planned on bad weather we didn't plan or head out on a hike in the morning. Then as the day went on and the weather seemed stable it seemed like we needed something to burn off some energy so I looked for a hike that wasn't too too far away from home. This trail, on top of Italy hill, was just under an hour away and not someplace we'd been before.  It ended up being part of or a branch of the Finger Lakes trails like so many other hikes we have done. The trail was lovely with lots of fall color and a long but gentle downhill track on the way out and the same gentle slope up

The other day we were running errands around town and I remembered that there were two little trailheads along Fairport Nine Mile Road that we might not have explored before.  After Brian got out of work at Target we headed out to explore these 2 small nearly unmarked trailheads.  Four Mile Creek is almost in Webster, about 24 miles North of our house.  I was surprised to see that Alltrails had good maps of the little trail network at this park but nobody has uploaded any suggested hikes there.  When we actually did the 3 loops we kind of realized why nobody wrote them up.  All 3 loops totaled just barely 3/4 of a mile.  It was very nice scenery, entirely covered in bright colored crunchy leaves but it felt like Barbie's hiking trails they were so tiny. Harris Whalen Park was a few miles closer to home and, based on the trail conditions, is used quite a bit more than Four Mile Creek.  There were a lot of blazed trails going all around this small park and it had more texture than th

I didn't wait long to get back to this park which I had just first hiked last week.  It was pretty warm today and there was a ton of wildlife around. I saw 2 snakes and 2 deer.  A fellow park visitor pointed out a large fish swimming up stream and we wondered what that size fish would be doing in such a small stream. Not much else to report on this.  Snakes and deer are both tough to photograph in their natural habitats but I tried.

This is the same park where we did one of our 2 overnight backpacking trips back in May of 2020.  We headed out Saturday after Brian's Target shift and made it to our hotel in Grove City PA by about 8:30 pm.  It was a reasonable trip. We were at the trailhead by 9 am this morning. There were almost no other people at this sometimes busy State Park.  There is a bridge that crosses Oil Creek in the park which is very old and was recently closed.  At first it was closed completely, effectively bisecting the large state park right down the middle in a very unfortunate way since even driving between the two halves is quite a chore without the bridge.  Thankfully, they opened the bridge to pedestrian traffic a few weeks ago. I did a solo visit to this park sometime last year I think.  I expected that today's 7 mile hike from Alltrails would be the same hike I did on my solo day trip.  It turned out not to be.  This turned out to be rather different.  Our hike today went by a LOT of

This was just a quick leg stretcher I was able to slip into my schedule between my main work day and a 6 pm evening task I have for work tonight.   Brian and I went to this park before once but I think it was buggy or very humid or something that caused us to miss out on walking here.  The topography and scenery was excellent, especially with the fall colors and leaves coming down.  There were 2 surprising sightings.  First, a snake was out sunning and slithered away as I got near.  The second was a gigantic dead fish (pictured) in the small stream that runs through the park.  I'm surprised anything that large would be found in such a small waterway.   I can't wait to return.

This was just a quick after work walk but since it's been wet and rainy here finally, the stream going through this linear park was extra impressive. There were a LOT of people fishing and wading in the creek.  Far more fishing than hiking was going on. After the walk we did some shopping and I finally got to try Panera Bread's Teriyaki Chicken & Rice bowl and it was honestly amazing.  Far beyond my expectations.  A nice evening.

We originally set out for a hike near Syracuse but were surprised by how wet it was.  I thought the wet weather was mainly supposed to be Saturday.  After trying to start a 2nd choice hike near Oswego (also rainy) we were basically giving up heading home on NY-104 when I noticed that we were in a convincingly rain free area and maybe Sterling Nature Center would be dry enough for at least a leg stretcher hike. The water of Lake Ontario was very rough and ocean-like.  We tried starting on a different trail that headed west instead of the usual Dogwood extension trail that heads East from the (under construction) visitor's center.  It was clear the trail we started on wasn't very popular as it was all leaf covered and would have been hard to follow if not for the tree blazes.  After doing a loop on that West side of the park we stayed as close to the lake as we could and explored some of the shore trails before returning on the main Dogwood Extended trail. Pictures by Brian.