Wednesday, October 30
Fillmore Glen State Park, Moravia
Hike report by Jim
Twenty-three hikers and two dogs met in Fillmore Glen State Park for a loop hike of the rim trails there, led by Nancy L. This is hike # 14-2 on our list of regular hike locations: https://www.ithacahikers.com/hike-14.
The morning was cool as hikers arrived at the park, and while the weather forecast said that the day would warm up, many hikers started with more layers on than they ended the hike wearing.
The group walked across the stone bridge where park workers were busily repairing the stone retaining walls and began the long steady climb up the north rim trail. This set of stairs crisscrosses the hillside, alternating between older stone steps and the newer pressure treated woods steps that were installed a couple of years ago.
Eventually the stairs end, and the path begins a looping route through the woods, your feet crunching the numerous acorns and shuffling through the carpet of freshly fallen leaves that lie across the trail. Much of the trail here follows the lip of the ravine, offering many good views of the creek below and the woods on the south side of the ravine.
The hikers bypassed the short cut to the Gorge Trail but turned into the waterfall loop trail, which they completed before returning to the North Rim Trail and continuing on our route.
Eventually the trail comes out at a nice pond with dam, which we crossed to get to the South Rim Trail. That trail bypasses a lean-to and kiosk that drew some attention from hikers, at the same time dipping in and out of a park road before finally returning to the woods.
Nancy paused the group for a minute at one overlook area, then continued on towards the lower park area we had started from. Passing a pavilion, the hikers began our final descent towards the lower park. Reaching the end of the stairs, Nancy led the group to the near-by Cow Pens area before bringing the hike to its inevitable conclusion.
By now the sun had been out for some time, most hikers had shed at least one layer, and the temperatures of the day had approached 70F, if not higher.
The hikers shared the trails with a decent number of other day hikers. while encountering only one slightly muddy area along the entirety of the route.
A warm welcome to Rich, who hiked with us for the first time today.
View Nancy Lorr’s photo album.
Saturday, November 2
New “Chunks” Hike, Stone House Rd., Enfield
Hike report by Jim
This was an Ithaca area hiking day for many groups….during the hike we ran into FLTC sawyer Erin Potter who brought a group from Binghamton to upper Robert Treman. After the hike I encountered the Triple Cities Hiking Club standing along the side of West King Rd where they were doing the FLT spur trail hike that we did a couple of weeks ago….also during our hike, we ran into Cayuga Trails Club hikers Lucy Gagliardo and Tom Formanek on the trail. The trails were full of hikers today, to put it mildly.
As to our own group hike….
Eighteen hikers and one dog met on Stone House Rd in the Town of Enfield on a cool windy morning for a group first-time hike of a new route that we ‘ve stitched together to form a new two-hour hike. This hike is not yet posted to our hikes page.
The hike starts out with the new loop trail in Margarets Woods, the Land Trust property that will eventually be absorbed into Robert Treman State Park. After completing the loop, the group took the new connector trail that meets the FLT and the CCC trail near the wooden bridge just off Woodard Rd. Taking the CCC trail into Upper Treman, we took a slight pause near the Old Mill and then hiked across the old upper Treman camping area to the base of the Red Pine Trail before looping back to the Gorge Trail.
Because we were ahead of schedule I changed our route and the group hiked into the gorge area to view Lucifer Falls. Returning to the Upper Treman parking lot the group walked back to the CCC trail and re-traced our route back to Stone House Rd. For our first hike using this new route we ended up about five minutes over our scheduled time; not bad for a first attempt, not counting the pre-hike that Leigh Ann Vaughn and I did a couple of weeks ago when we first planned this hike.
Overall, I like the new route. The loop through Margarets Woods could use a little extra blazing at points, and the connector trail to the FLT/ CCC trails will be helpful in changing up some of the other hikes that we currently do in the area. I highly recommend that hikers check out the new Land Trust Loop trail when they’re able!
Warm welcome to Jennifer E on her first hike with the group!
Sunday, November 3
Dryden Rail Trail from Dryden Village
Hike report by Jim
Twenty-six hikers and four dogs met in the Village of Dryden for an out and back hike of the Dryden-Freeville Rail Trail. This is hike # 49-A on our list of regular hike locations: https://www.ithacahikers.com/hike-49.
The day was a beautiful and clear day for our hike. Some of the early morning chill persisted until the beginning of the hike but was soon forgotten once the group started to move over the very flat and mostly well-maintained grassy trail surface. Compared to many of our recent hikes on more traditional hiking trails, the rail trail offers hikers the chance to walk and talk to others in the group without being forced to watch your feet continually for trip hazards
This was a go-at-your-own-pace hike with no real hike leader or sweep. The group mostly made if to Railroad Street (state route 38) in the Village of Freeville before turning around and re-tracing the route.
I recall when this trail first opened a few years ago, I was hiking it when the footpath in many places was still a muddy, uneven mess. I am happy to report that the trail has really come into its own since then. I still prefer to hike here on Sunday mornings when the road noise from near-by roads is greatly diminished compared to weekdays.
The day was mostly sunny, putting some wooded parts of the trail in shadow. The distant views across the William George fields were good.
There were several other day hikers, dog walkers and bicyclists sharing the trail with our group today.
The slowest subset of our hikers got back to the cars at 1 hour 59 minutes; the lead hikers were already long gone, so maybe we’ll have to add some distance to this hike when we do it again in the future.