Sunday May 26th 2025 - Finger Lakes Trail - Near Watkins Glen NY - 6.85 miles, just over 900 feet elevation gain

It's Memorial day and the weather Saturday and Sunday was wetter than people surely hoped for.  Today was sunny and dry which was great but I'm very thankful we got an early start since there were sure to be a ton of people out and about on this one sunny holiday day.  We arrived at the trailhead before 8:30 am after a breakfast at McDonlad's along the way.

The trail wasted no time in getting the adventure started.  Within 3 minutes we had a challenging stream crossing to do.  With all the rain we've been getting, the stream had a lot of water in it.  Thankfully, the stream bed is very wide and shallow at the stream crossing point but we still had to struggle to determine the best spot to do the crossing. The first few steps were on little flat pieces of slimy rock just poking out of the stream and then one big step that had to land on a very pointy rock before the last, relatively easy step could be taken.  Brian found a good stick and it helped make the most challenging gap a little less nerve wracking.  Then he stashed it on the other side so we could use it on the way back.

 


There is a gorgeous little waterfall right there at the crossing also with a primitive camp site right next to it.  Pretty great payoff for what is literally maybe 1000 feet from the road we parked on.  But we were here for a long hike.  The Alltrails hike we had downloaded was for a 9 miler and we set out with the best of intentions to do the whole thing.  A few minutes after the exciting creek crossing the mud started.  It wasn't surprising given how we it has been but we had no way to know what this particular section of the FLT would be like. As it turns out, this section was about half well drained and half not.  So we alternated between squishing through the modest muddy sections, diverting around the deepest as best we could and appreciating the breaks from the mud.

We were next to a stream for the first mile or so of the trail and it was alternating between more densely forested areas and more open meadow like areas.  There were birds chirping and water gurgling but otherwise mostly peace.  The total 9 mile hike was quoted at 1200 feet of elevation gain which is pretty stuff by our standards.  The 7 miles we ended up doing covered 900 of those 1200 feet and it was surprisingly easy walking since there were many many little ups and downs but absolutely no long grinds at all.  When we got to the first (and only) paved road we were to cross on the hike we agreed that 7 miles with a fair amount of elevation gain was enough of an accomplishment for today.  We had walked 3.5 miles at that point but we had some very minor side diversions that we wouldn't need to repeat on the way back so we ended up at a little less than 7 by the time we were back.

We both enjoyed this trail immensely.  The scenery was great, the waterfall was flowing well and we only saw a few other hikers on our whole trip.  There were no trees down or other trail blocking obstructions.  Still, for a Finger Lakes Trail section, the lack of trail fixtures was surprising.  The FLT often has nice plank walkways or even little bridges across areas that are prone to being wet.  There wasn't a single inch of 2x4 used on this entire segment that we could see and I think there are plenty of places where some mud avoidance infrastructure would be valuable.






 

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