Road Trips and Hike Reports

We'd been to this surprisingly large city park once before but I think we took a different and longer route this time.  Summer's grip has finally released in our area and it was great to have a really substantial long walk without being totally worn out from heat or humidity. This park is really exceptional.  Despite being minutes from the 104 expressway and just minutes from all kinds of big box stores and other suburban stuff, it is quiet and natural feeling.  We started walking through the tall grass, almost Savannah-like fields.  After circling the large field there was a very quick and dramatic scenery change from open field to very woodsy.  Most of the hike was woodsy and partially shaded.  While there weren't any really big hills, there were lots of modest ups and downs that dded up over the course of the 7 mile long walk. It was a really good day.  

This is a trail that I've been on a few times and Brian had been on once before.  It's pretty far from home (150 miles) but we got a very early start and enjoyed a fantastic walk in unseasonably cool mild weather.  The drive to and from was pleasant and surprisingly very light traffic for a gorgeous summer Saturday.  The 4 mile gravel road to get to the trailhead isn't too bad but it's steep and pretty long for an East Coast hike access point.   This probably keeps the number of visitors a lot lower than it might otherwise be. The pictures tell the rest of the story.  

This hike was from a different starting point than another hike we did previously, the Erie-Attica  trail but it connected back to the far point of that trail.  I didn't have a published guide for finding this starting point but I looked closely at Alltrails maps and it looked like there was a trailhead for something labeled 'Genessee Valley Greenway State Park' which I think, technically, is the entire 90 mile trail but I wasn't sure if maybe there was a special facility at the spot Alltrails shows... I  In hindsight I don't think there is anything special where that map marking is but it was still a rewarding adventure.  There was a small parking area along W River road.  From there we headed south along the trail.  A lot of it was very typical generic greenway stuff..     But later it got a lot more interesting with 2 good sized bridges. One of them was fascinating because the level we walked on (which is level with the trailbed) was actually t...

This was a quick leg stretcher on a very hot day.  I think we were on our way to something else but found an hour to get in a walk.  The Sterling Nature Center is right along Lake Ontario and has a nice remote feeling despite being fairly easy to get to if you happen to be heading East/West along NY-104 which runs across the southern short of Lake Ontario.