Wednesday, May 21
Connecticut Hill Wildlife Management Area, Newfield
Hike report by Dave Bock
On a rainy Wednesday morning a group with 8 heads and 18 legs (mathteacherspeak…) set out for a 4-mile loop hike on Connecticut Hill. Shortly after entering the woods we turned downhill for a gravity-aided mile-and-a-half descent — and savvy hikers know what that portends. The bottom of the hill presented us with our first stream crossing flanked by pilings for a long-abandoned bridge. Despite the recent rains, the water level was surprisingly low enough that stepping stones meant no wet feet. The trail continued along the bank of a tributary creek, meandering gently uphill to an overgrown sandbank that was once the departure point for trucks that would have crossed that bridge. A short-but-steep climb brought us to the top of the bank for a view of another hill shrouded in the day’s mist. Here the loop arced back in the general direction of the cars, this section of trail marked by patches of mud through a forest of pines giving way to mixed hardwoods. ’Twas here that the Hike Leader (guilty!) walked past a turn, realized the mistake a couple hundred yards later, and found the missed trail via a short bushwhack (bonus feature!). Some gentle ups and downs then brought us to another stream crossing and soon thereafter to the more daunting climb that would end the hike. With a couple of stops to catch our breath and to look over what may have been the site of some Prohibition-era moonshining, we arrived back at the trailhead in just over 2 hours. Intermittent gentle rain combined with a breeze freeing water from upper leaves to produce a wet but enjoyable hike.
Saturday, May 24
Monkey Run Natural Area, Corner of Hanshaw Road and Lower Creek Road
Hike report by Jim
Today was supposed to be a trail maintenance day for our adopted section of the Cayuga Trail, with a stop at Hopshire Farms and Brewery afterwards. Because of the daily rain forecasts I delayed the trail work but opted to keep the hike active as an option for anyone who decided to hike today despite the weather. This was the second postponement of trail maintenance due to weather.
As I stood in the parking lot at the corner of Hanshaw and Lower Creek Rds, a dog walker arrived, parked next to my car and said to me that nobody would hike today because of the weather.
Well, thirteen people and a dog arrived for the hike, and the dog walker got to see the group as we left the parking lot headed to the red blazed Monkey Run trails.
This is hike # 5-1 on our list of regular hike locations: https://www.ithacahikers.com/hike-5. The FLTC does make a “Cayuga Trail” map available in either paper or electronic formats, available for purchase at: https://fingerlakestrail.org/store/maps-and-gps/purchase-individual-maps/. Sale of the map sheets does help to defray the costs associated with trail maintenance. That being said, I believe that some of the other online map options out there are a better hike option for this particular trail system due to a lack of detail of the FLTC product.
The weather predictions for today were accurate, and we had at least a light sprinkle of rain throughout most of the hike today.
The group left the parking lot and hiked down the red blazed trail towards Fall Creek. There was a lot of standing water along the way; in fact, in much of the hike parts of the trail with any amount of elevation change consisted of a running stream of water. There was also quite a bit of slippery mud on the elevation changes. Areas of the route that included a rope on the hillsides were quite welcome.
The hike route included a good stretch of trail that follows the shoreline for Fall Creek before it scales the bluffs and continues towards the Cornell Outdoor program pavilion on the orange blazed portion of the trail system.
We did have a few stream crossings along the way, both on the outbound and return portions of the hike. By the time we crossed the streams my feet were already so wet that I didn’t even bother to look for rocks to step across the stream on.
We did see quite a few areas where recent sawyer work was done to open up the footpath after recent blowdowns; thank you to the CTC volunteer sawyers for their efforts!
The group reached the turn-around point of the hike without incident and began the return leg of the hike. I altered our original route by leaving the footpath and returning to the cars via the entrance road for the Cornell pavilion, which saved up a few minutes’ worth of hiking on a very wet day.
Other than the original dog walker I spoke to, we saw a couple of trail runners and another group of dog walkers during the second half of our hike. Otherwise, we had a very wet and muddy trail to ourselves today.
The Hopshire stop was also postponed for a better day.
Thanks to everyone who came out to hike today!
Sunday, May 25
Lime Hollow Nature Center, Cortland
Hike report by Leigh Ann
Nineteen hikers met at the large Lime Hollow parking lot on north Gracie Road and did a different route than usual. This route went west on Lehigh Valley to Fen Way, then headed south on Fen Way to the eastern Mill Pond Connector. From there, we took Mill Pond counterclockwise to where a Mill Pond spur heads east to Gracie Road. After crossing Gracie Road and ending up at the southern Gracie Road parking lot, we did Wanderer Way, then returned to the Mill Pond Spur. Because the wooden bridges were slimy after a week of nonstop rain and the one to the Mill Pond Spur was especially slimy, we headed back to the Mill Pond loop by taking the trail around the south side of Cattail Pond. Then we rejoined the Mill Pond loop, stopping to admire Salamander Springs before returning to the eastern Mill Pond connector. From there, we took Fen Way west to its western junction with Lehigh Valley, then took Lehigh Valley back to the cars. We arrived back at the cars in two hours. This is a nice, rather different hike in Lime Hollow than we’ve usually done.
