Road Trips and Hike Reports

This was just a quick walk on the way to dinner at Cracker Barrel.  We went to this park once before but this time we took nearly every junction along the trail to take us to the outer extremities of the roughly rectangular shape of the park.  There is a main trail that makes a slightly shorter loop around the park but the outer areas we went to this time included a little more variety in terrain. It was pretty humid and warm, one of those days when getting ANY hike in seems like an accomplishment.  

In terms of exercise this wasn't anything notable.  It was very close to home, nearly flat and we didn't walk particularly far.  What makes this little walk notable is that, despite being super close to home and on trails we've done parts of before, this was all new scenery that we didn't know existed. The Lehigh and Auburn trails are 2 different rail trails which cross at least once here in Victor.  We've walked on both of them before but this time we started at the Lehigh Crossing park which we hadn't been to before. Very close to where we parked was a long pond with at least 5 turtles sunning themselves on logs.  Brian absolutely loves to see turtles so he was super excited.  There was also a large railroad bridge where the Lehigh crossed the Auburn railroads.  We've done several hikes on different sections of these trails and it's all very close to home and seemingly in a built up area but here was an entire section that was new to us.

I thought this would be a park we'd never been to before but when we actually arrived it seemed like this was just another part of Whiting Road nature preserve.  It was certainly a different section of trail than we've done before and Whiting Road nature preserve is a really great park for a suburban city park. The Alltrails description for this hike said we were unlikely to encounter other hikers and it was certainly the case today.  Parts of the trail were a little muddy and some had light overgrowth.  I kind of expeted a wide gravel covered trail so we didn't bring the hiking boots or bug spray.  Still, for a 'pre-dinner' weeknight hike, it was good.  

I originally tried to go to a more wild location in New Hampshire near a river.  The insects at the parking area were so bad that I couldn't imagine doing a hike there even with the bug spray on.  So we abandoned that hike and headed into Sherbrooke early.  I had planned for us to see the Devil Wears Prada 2 in Sherbrooke anyway so I just made sure to find some sort of little hike we could do there also. The park we went to is immediately next to Sherbrooke university and almost in urban Sherbrooke yet it has a ski lift and a very extensive trail network.  Most trails allowed bikes OR hikers but not both.  I'm generally not a fan of hyper-segregated uses for natural spaces but given the high use this park might see at some times and the large number of trails to choose from, maybe the way they are doing it makes sense for this park in particular.  The trail we walked was a forest road basically and it went up and down a fair bit but was basically along the ...

Brian didn't want to get up as early as I did on this, our unexpected day at home before returning to work.  Since it was going to be really warm (near 90) on the 2nd day we were going to be at Ohiopyle State Park in Pennsylvania, we opted to head home Monday instead of spending a 2nd night in our yurt.  While it would have been nice to have our full 2 night yurt camping trip, it was nice coming home Monday and having all of Tuesday to do something different with.   I got up early and got blood work drawn for an upcoming medical appointment. I also needed to go to Best Buy to try and find a new laptop for my father who has been having frequent crashes on his Dell Latitude.  I had about an hour and a half between getting blood drawn and Best Buy opening plus it was going to be pretty warm here too.  So I decided to squeeze an unplanned mini hike into the time and opportunity I had.  The Crescent trail is a wonderful trail network that is very close to u...

Clearly this wasn't an expedition.  It was a brief stop on the way to dinner but it was a nice way to enjoy the longer days of spring.   Brian found a ring on the ground which I took back to the park the next day.

I'm a little late posting this.  We were in Burlington visiting our friend Jim who just bought a new condo.  The weather wasn't great but we got out for this little leg stretcher with great views just a few miles from Jim's place.  It was refreshing seeing a lot of polite friendly off-leash dogs.  I usually think of Vermont as being highly regulated with lots of restrictions but on this trail off-leash dogs are totally allowed they are just supposed to be 'under voice control' as a sign says along the trail.  

 Sometimes hikes that start out seemingly like sad compromises end up being great.  Since we came all the way home (albeit very late) Sunday night, we both had Monday off. Though I was not full of energy after the late night drive home, my first inclination was to find a 'normal' nature trail sort of hike.  Brian wanted something with a good distance but didn't want to need to weak hiking boots.  After some Alltrails scouring I found this trail loop but thought it was largely a repeat hike of the Trolley Trail we had hiked in the past which runs behind NY-31 in the rail bed of a former interurban train.  This turned out to be mostly NOT that same trail and it was a lot more interesting than I expected.   This loop starts at a parking lot near a popular restaurant rich piece of the Erie canal.  As you head west along the canal it quickly gets quieter.  It then heads North through a long and narrow easement used for some small power lines.  It ...

We were on our way to Vermont to celebrate Brian's parents birthdays and anniversary.  The Alltrails hike I downloaded was a longer out and back on the Escarpment trail which runs along the dramatic cliff edges that make up most of the trail network at Thacher State Park.  This is one of NY State's best state parks to visit in the fall and being a weekday there were very few people visiting when we were there. Part way along the Escarpment trail I saw the sign for Indian Ladder and an impressive set of stairs leading down the cliff from the edge where we were.  The stairs (which replaced the trail's namesake ladder) didn't lead all the way to the bottom of the valley but did go down to a shelf that exists 60 or so feet down the cliff edge.  In several spots there are waterfalls that trickle (or gush) off the escarpment edge.  More mysteriously to me, there are also places where reasonable amounts of water come flowing out from UNDER the escarpment.  I don't...