Road Trips and Hike Reports

We last visited this trail January 10th, 2021 .  Hard to believe it's been almost 4 years, it seemed pretty familiar.  One thing that was different this time is that the creek had a LOT of water in it.  The falls were really roaring and impressive.  Today was slightly warmer (or rather, less cold) than the past week but the trail was still firm and frozen.

This was more enjoyable than I expected it would be.  We walked up one long ridge and then made a little loop at the end of it before walking back along the bottom of the same hill.  It felt natural and forested even though it's really quite suburban.

This hike is actually very close to the one we did last weekend.  The Fair Haven State Park and Sterling Nature Center park are just a few miles apart by road.  We've gone to this park about 5 different times but this is the first time we went since the new visitors center opened.  It's a perfectly lovely building and I bought a T-shirt in support but there isn't really much in the building to see or do.  I was pretty surprised this is a Cayuga county park .  I assumed, based on the appearance and the general low-key nature of the park, that it was a private foundation or land trust that owned it. Now that the visitors center is open I was able to get their official little trail map .  While we have tried to explore some of the trails to the left side of the parking lot (if one is facing Lake Ontario), the majority of the trail network, especially the interconnected part, is to the right of the parking lot.  Normally we walk the Dogwood extended trail ...