Saturday November 8th, 2025 - Pharsalia Wildlife Magement Area - Pharsalia (SE of Syracuse) NY - 4.1 miles about 310 feet elevation gain

This hike was a rare return to the 50 Hikes in Central NY book.  It's an old book and we often have some challenges following the directions to the trailhead and today wasn't an exception to that rule.  We did eventually find the starting point along a narrow dirt road.  Finding an unobtrusive place to park the car that wouldn't be in the way of the road and not in mud took a few minutes.  When we got out of the car we realized that the hiking boot bag only had my boots in it.  When I picked mine out I didn't think to grab Brian's and apparently he didn't either so Brian did the hike in his street shoes.

There wasn't really much to see during the first mile or so. It was just a series of trail blazes leading through a scrubby, maybe harvested a few years ago, forest.  There were quite a few wet spots and puddles but thankfully after the first mile there were almost no wet spots the entire rest of the way.  The scenery also improved with some narrower but more obvious trail routing that felt more like a trail that might go somewhere interesting rather than just an A to B conveyance.

The middle 2 miles were the most interesting and scenic.  The book's description of how far to go between turns was probably accurate but it wasn't super easy to interpret so we made one little circle shortly after crossing an earthen dam at the end of the scenic pond we had been walking near during the first mile.  Throughout the hike there were a number of gun shots nearby.  When we got to about mile 3 there were some really loud and close shots. That, combined with arriving at a junction that wasn't at all as it was described in the book, caused us to decide to just finish out our loop early since, at that moment, we knew exactly where we were relative to the car.  Four miles isn't an impressive distance for us but in terms of adventure factor, this hike had plenty.

The (long) drives both coming and going were unusually pleasant with extra light traffic and some nice late fall color.








 

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