Sunday February 11th 2024 - Fingerlakes Trail segment at Italy Hill - Italy NY - 4.3 miles, 722 feet elevation gain

 Link to our Alltrails plot.

This was a new trail for us.  The parking situation causes a lot of confusion for this trail. The Alltrails file correctly takes you to a small parking area and the Fingerlakes trail heads out directly from that point but at least for a few months in the Winter, the trail is closed with a no trespassing sign.  To do the hike we chose you actually walk along the road a little bit then head up the hill on the opposite side of the road from the parking area.

This trail relentlessly but gently climbs up from the very start almost to the very end.  It was exceptionally steady in grade with only small difference between the steepest and less steep areas.  Considering the elevation gain this seemed very easy.  When we looked off to our left (on the way up) it was clear how much elevation we were gaining.  There was 1 really impressive creek/waterfall crossing. It actually was a tiny bit intimidating because the water was flowing over a pretty wide area and it was steep and rocky.  Thankfully there were 3 well placed little flat rocks that were just enough to tip toe across the creek without getting our feet wet.  Towards the top of the hill there was a really nice lean-to with a tremendous amount of firewood available.  I'm not sure why they stacked up cords and cords of wood for this particular lean-to but somebody had a fire this morning and the coals were still warm and what a luxury on a cool winter day.

Where this particular trail download ended was actually just barely overlapping with the hike we did on Saturday October 29th of 2023. Maybe someday we'll have a car shuttle and do the 2 trail segments together as a 1 way hike.  We'll certainly do it again somehow because it's a very nice and relatively close walk for us.











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