Monday March 4th 2024 - Finger Lakes trail and other trails - Watkins Geln NY - 9 miles, 160 feet elevation gain

Watkins Glen is best known for it's auto racing and the State Park which shares the name of the city.  Our hike came from a printed series of maps I bought from the Finger Lakes Trail Conference a few years ago.  Most of them are 'traily' hike loops in the woods. This one had a lot of road walks and though it starts in the Watkins Glan State Park parking lot, it doesn't actually go into the state park at all and certainly not into the famous gorge that is the main feature of the park.

The weather today was astounding.  It was about 70 degrees at the high point and cloudless with just occasionally light breezes. We actually wore shorts and were really glad we did.  The hike started walking through residential streets of Watkins Glen then South along a rail bed that goes from railroad to abandoned rail bed exactly at a bridge over Glen Creek which is now just a foot bridge. 

 

The high school's athletic field obliterates about 1/3 of a mile of the rail bed but the road around the track makes a handy enough diversion until the rail bed continues on from the other side.  After about a mile of rail trail, a side trail led over to 'Aunt Sarah's Falls' along NY-14. The photo doesn't really represent the amount of water and the road it created which could be heard from the main rail trail alongside the canal.

After the waterfall the trail went very briefly along busy and loud NY-14 and then cut back to the rail trail on a different spur trail that went by a few ponds, one of which had some ducks in it.

This was almost the end of the rail trail for us. We then walked across a relatively new pedestrian bridge crossing East over the barge canal which the rail trail runs right next to.  From here we walked along a Marina/campground road that ran back north part of the way on the East side of the canal.  There was a 1 mile loop through some wetland type area that eventually connected to a road that ran north along a gigantic marshy area with dozens or hundreds of acres of golden brown wetland grasses and beautiful blue streams of water.  We didn't totally understand the written directions that went along with the printed map so we had to backtrack and do park of the 1 mile loop twice and we had 1 dead end where we tried to guess what the intended trail path was.  These added about .75 miles to the already hefty 8.3 miles planned.

Later we came to an interesting little observation tower along the long nearly unused dirt road that runs along the East edge of the wetland/wildlife management area. The dirt road ran along a bluff of limestone type rocks which sometimes had beautiful cascades of water coming down it.

Finally the dirt road ended at NY-414 which runs east/west across the south end of Seneca Lake and back to the urban part of Watkins Glen where our car was parked.  It was a wonderful opportunity to go someplace we usually avoid during summer (Watkins Glen is very popular) and on a spectacular weather day.  Plus it is one of the longer hikes we've done in months.