Saturday November 1st, 2025 - Pratt's Falls County Park - Manlius (near Syracuse) NY - 5.3 miles about 580 feet elevation gain

We previously visited this very beautiful county park last year.  Fall color is still pretty strong here right now but the leaves are dropping fast.  We finally had 2 days with substantial rain Thursday and Friday so everything was wet but that also meant the creeks and falls had a useful amount of water in them now.

We actually did 2 separate trails here, the North Rim Trail and the West Branch trail.  The North Rim was very hard to navigate because this park insists on using little colored trail blazes at junctions.  Unlike East Coast standard blazes which tell you (from the color) which trail you are following and (from the arrangement of the 3 blazes in the color you are looking for) which direction to turn and where the trail ends, these little markers just vaguely reassured you that you were on the right trail but not very directly which was to turn.  Many times we walked up to the marker from the back side (just seeing a stick in the ground) and had to infer, by looking at which way you would see the trail marker head-on, which direction was meant.  We ended up doing 2 extra little segments of trail and 2 short repeated segments because of this lack of clarity.

  

 

 

 

Our timing was good since it did rain on the way there and as we left but we had very little precip while we were on the trails.  It was a nice start to our Saturday.