ithacahikers

Hello Hikers!

 

Wednesday Nov 18

Watkins Glen State Park gorge trail

This is the main parking lot and entrance to the gorge trail. A couple of thoughts:

First, this is by far the most popular state park in the Finger Lakes — well over 50% more visitors last year than at Taughannock, the next most popular — since parking in this small lot and entering the gorge through a tunnel through the rock is the only way to get the full stunning impact ….

…. imagine the mob scene at peak season. But you can have this gorge all to yourself, if you wait until early November. In fact, most of the cars in the parking lot were ours, and we saw only a handful of other people. But don’t wait too late into the month — the gorge trail closed the day after we hiked it.

The other thought that the parking lot prompted in me is, what an absolutely fantastic benefit for us the 1930s federal CCC program has been! So many wonderful hours we’ve spent walking on the improvements constructed by the young CCC workers. The parking lot scene actually made me think of the ruins of Aztec construction you can find in Mexico — great public works from the past.

It turned out a number of the hikers Wednesday hadn’t done Watkins Glen in decades — a few people had never done it — the ride is only 36 minutes from The Commons, but somehow people never seem to get around to it.

There’s 800-some steps to the full trail — not too tiring if you hike
regularly like we do

Official head count: 23 hikers, one dog (who wasn’t supposed to be on the
trail but hiked under the radar — and he wasn’t the only dog there).
After the hike, 13 people headed a few blocks away for lunch at the Crooked
Rooster, a brewpub.

How popular is Watkins Glen SP? From the state DEC page about the park:
“In 2015, the park was chosen from more than 6,000 state parks across the
nation as a nominee in the USA TODAY Readers’ Choice Poll for Best State
Park in the United States, and won third place!”

You can see eight more photos by me online here.

You can see Jack V’s photos here.

You can see Annie’s photos here.

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Saturday Nov 21

Upper Treman SP, Enfield

Sunday Nov 22

Upper Buttermilk Falls SP

Great start to our 2015 hunting season — no hunter could ever mistake our chattering, noisy, colorful hikers for a herd of deer. In fact, I didn’t hear a single gun shot either day. This line-up was on Saturday’s hike.
This one from Sunday morning — for whatever reason, everyone seemed unusually cheerful both days, and we had a really good time.
A good bit of ups and downs and stair climbing both days. Saturday, descending the Red Pine Trail in Treman — slippery leaves and loose rocks — nasty combination, and much steeper than it looks in the photo.
Sunday — stairs at the outflow end of Lake Treman —
…. and stairs along the edge of the lake — you need to wear about a size 1 shoe to be able to walk up these stairs comfortably
We also did the massive super-steep staircase just below Lucifer Falls on Saturday — I was too stressed worrying about losing my balance to get any shots — but here’s a photo from a minute or two later, at the famous look-out over the falls — I had to bleach out the background to get any details on the hikers
Here’s the inflow end of Lake Treman — the state did a major flood control project here a few years ago — the results look terrible, IMO — I keep hoping the area will have started to recover its former charm every time we come here, but so far, still looks awful
If you’re into hiker fashions, I think hunting season’s the best time of the year by far, because of all the colorful coats and hats — at other times, our group can look pretty drab

Here’s the official weekend head counts:
Saturday: 31 hikers, four dogs
Sunday: 41 hikers, six dogs
The lighting Saturday was especially lovely, and I had a wonderful time in the woods

More photos online:

Saturday:
Me
Annie

Sunday:
Me
Annie

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Hello Hikers!

 

Wednesday Nov 11

Edwards Lake Cliff Preserve, Lansing

Ever since Tiger and I moved to Ithaca 12 years ago, Lansing’s been nothing but a boring set of busy roads where you go to the doctor or the mall. Then, recently, we had occasion to drive around it a good bit on the local streets, and I’ve completely changed my opinion. Now I think it’s a delightful place. I love the mix of sweeping open fields and high-quality houses and the newer gaudy mansions. And now we have a great Lansing hike too.

It appears this preserve has some special natural and geological qualities that make it stand out — I actually don’t care about any of that — I just find it really beautiful and a lovely place to walk.

If there’s a way to get down to the lake front from the high ground, we haven’t figured it out. But it’s completely satisfying to walk along the top of the bluffs — there’s a hugely deep gorge at one point, and several very pleasing views out over the lake.

We had some great atmospherics for the walk  —  it was raining shortly before hike time, and there was mist hanging in the air when we shaped up  —  it started to drizzle near the end and a little fog moved in  — fabulous if you like that kind of stuff

Official head count:  11 hikers, one dog

There was one micro-burst of excitement  —  the others abruptly noticed my pants were festooned with stickers, I guess when I was wandering around through the underbrush trying to get photos.  (Photo by Mary.)  Tiger was a little distressed I’d messed up my pants so much  —  I said I’d pull them all off but Tiger ended up doing it because I was slow to get started on the chore.

You can see eight more photos by me online here.

You can see Jack V’s online photos here.

 

Saturday Nov 14

Roy H Park Preserve into Hammond Hill SF, Dryden

First official snow-on-the-ground walk of the fall season
Beautiful cool gusty morning, definitely with a touch of winter feeling. (Speaking of winter, here’s a somewhat ominous news article that’s just out.)

This was our second walk that took us into Hammond Hill SF within two weeks, but we took mostly a different route and there was very little overlap and repetition.  We did hit a little mud going this way and there was some grumbling from the peanut gallery, which I ignored.

We’ve done this hike a number of times now and all along I’ve thought that the gorgeous stretch of woods from the end of the boardwalk to Hammond Hill Road was part of the Roy H Park Preserve.  In fact, the Park Preserve ends right at the boardwalk, I now realize, thanks to our super-regular hiker Jack B.  So this greatly raises my already high appreciation of Hammond Hill SF  —  and lowers my appreciation of Roy H’s estate a bit, I’m sorry to say.  Love that stretch of woods!

Official head count:  27 hikers, five dogs

Here’s one more shot  —  I like the lighting

You can see nine online photos by me here

You can see Annie’s photos online here

 

Sunday November 15

Michigan Hollow Road SE to Curtis Road, Danby SF

Gorgeous morning on the trail after the weather flipped overnight from early winter to beautifully springlike
It was a little chilly at the trail head but by the time we got to the top of the big outbound hill, the coats were starting to come off — that’s Jack V, who’s very hot-blooded and is always among the first to strip down, and Margaret next to him with her coat off too — let me give a shout-out to the person on the far left, Julie — hasn’t hiked with us much in a while — she’s the one who created the Ithaca Hikers web site for me — for free — yay Julie!!
This trail is notorious for heavy sun-and-shade effects and we hit a good share of these even though all the leaves are now pretty much down. I like the effects in this shot, it has a slightly abstract quality and nice colors — if you blow it up, you can distinguish the details — Sue S is eating an apple, Roger’s looking at his phone, and June could be demonstrating how to strangle a snake while wearing gloves

On our way back to the cars the temperature was up over 50 and it was really lovely coming back down the long downhill stretch — only downside, it was a bit slippery because of dried leaf cover.

Official head count: 30 hikers, eight dogs

You can see eight more photos by me online here

You can see Annie’s photos here

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A quick word on our Thanksgiving get-together: We have enough people signed up for the hiker-roasted turkey, so that option is now closed. If you want turkey at the get-together, you can join in on a traditional turkey dinner from Wegmans that serves 10 to 12 people and will cost you $8-$9 for the turkey and a number of included sides. We have two people signed up for this already — I’ll send out a final call for this in a day or two. We’ll also push forward on our dish-to-pass option.

Hello Hikers!

 

Wednesday Nov 4

Shindagin Hollow SF, rim trail along the gorge, followed by a get-together at Mary’s

I hate a heat wave

in April or August  —

but boy is one fun

in November!

Sounds like something from the Great American Songbook, I can modestly say, but I came up with it myself trying to think of something catchy to say about Wednesday’s hike

Fantastic morning  —  it hit 75 later in the day  —  this is a great walk in any weather and it was spectacular with the balmy temps and some colorful leaves and the very low slanting sunlight

It’s typically too dark on this trail for me to get shots in the most striking areas, but thanks to the very low angle of the sun enough light was coming in this time.

Official head count:  19 hikers, two dogs

We drove a few miles up the road to Mary’s house right afterwards and she served us donuts, coffee and apple cider  —  a couple of other people brought things  —  Mary’s back yard is a great place to hang out after a hike  —  it has a really nice domestic feeling  —  great way to finish off a wonderful morning

You can see seven more shots by me online here

You can see photos by Jack V online here

 

 

Saturday Nov 7

Bob Cameron Loop, Connecticut Hill Wildlife Management Area

Tiger and I were out of town  —  this hike was led by Jack V

Jack did a brief report:

Saturday’s hike was very unusual. We started with 20 hikers and finished with 8. The trail was in good condition but the majority of the hikers did not want to hike for 2 hours.

Explanation:  The Bob Cameron Loop itself doesn’t take a full two hours  —  you need to cross the road and hike a little more to stretch this walk to the advertised length  —  it’s very tempting to skip this bit after you finish the loop section, and quit a little early.

You can see Annie’s photos of the hike here

 

 

Sunday Nov 8

Woodard Road NW to Hines Road, Enfield

Tiger and I were still out of town.   This was a true leaderless hike.  Annie and Brenda sent me hike reports:

Annie:

I think there were 21 hikers and 5 dogs. We departed pretty promptly and were fabulously led by Tracie and Gonzo. With most of the leaves gone, it was splendid seeing blue skies and sunshine throughout the woods. We slithered up and down the leafy trail and were thrilled to come out to a lovely field on Hines Road that featured a gorgeous red barn with a beautiful stone fence. (Perhaps you know what this place is. I do not.) After a relaxing break on Hines Road, some of us chose to go back on the road to Woodard to stay in the sun to enjoy the blue skies and billowing clouds. You’ll have to find out from the forest hikers how the return trip was.

Brenda:

Roger set the course for us and gave us directions. Tracy and Gonzo were in the lead with the rest of us trailing behind.
There were a lot of hikers who showed up but I did not have the presence of mind to count them.
I did, however, count the dogs ( no surprise there).
There was a Tori look alike who passed us on the road before the hike began but upon closer examination Roger noticed that the dog was too heavy and much younger then Tori.
Dogs participating in the actual hike were Gonzo, Nelson,(also Nelson’s owner’s cocker spaniel whose name I don’t remember) Ruby and Yoda – for a total of five.
There were very lively ups and downs but they did not compare to the challenge of yesterdays more then lively Connecticut Hill Ups and downs.
We passed by the beautiful Barn converted to a home with magnificent stone walls which seemed more extensive then the last time we visited.
The weather warmed up about half way through the hike and there was heavenly sunlight filtering into the forest. A magical setting.
As was anticipated we arrived back at the cars early so we decided to show hikers that had not seen it before the remains of the Civilian Conservation Corp.Camp.
The creek beside it was crystal clear and the dogs enjoyed either a drink, a dip or both. Along the creek bed were a few lovely stone cairns which we admired before heading back to the cars
Here is a link describing the history of the CCC camp:

Annie again:

Brenda, I’m so glad you captured the part of the hike I wasn’t on! As I was preparing my photos, I realized that I didn’t include Sabina in my count, so it rises to 22, but that’s not necessarily accurate! Brenda and I do agree about the dogs!

You can see Annie’s photos of the hike here

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Meanwhile, Tiger and I spent Saturday and Sunday in Piermont, NY, a small Hudson River village a few miles from Nyack, my home town.  Piermont is notable for having a pier that extends a mile into the Hudson, and a large marsh that stretch south from the pier along the shoreline (map here).   Here’s a shot of the marsh taken from the pier and looking at Tallman Mountain State Park.

I worked in a paperboard box factory on the pier for three summers when I was a teenager.  Tiger used to walk out on the pier with her dad when she was a girl, looking for interesting debris that had washed up.  After we married, we used to canoe in the marsh, and we lived in a house on the pier for three months  —  so we have some history here.  One of my sisters lives a few minutes from the pier  —  here she is with her husband and Tiger at the end of the pier  —  that’s the Tappan Zee Bridge and Tarrytown across the river in the background.

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Thursday Oct 29

Abbott Loop, Michigan Hollow Road eastward toward Curtis Road

A lot of people hike once in a while on a a handful of familiar trails.  I’d never knock it if that’s the full extent of your hiking.  But I want to suggest that if you start getting out a lot more, on a very wide variety of trails, you can come to discover there’s actually another whole world of Ithaca  —  parallel, completely different and separate from the daily world we see driving or walking around town — far more beautiful, serene, full of fantastic subtle colors and dramatic light and shade, striking forms and patterns — all you have to do is step off the road into the woods.

I was never into drugs as a young person so I don’t have any experience getting into an altered world. But I have found that by hiking several times a week all over the place, I’ve gotten a broad feeling that there really is another Ithaca all around us, just inside the edge of the forest.

The best time of all to get into it is October, in my view — sorry if you missed it.

I was prompted to try and put this thought into words by this midweek hike — it was fabulous, just so beautiful — raining on the way to the trail head, mild and sultry, dark clouds with some sun mixed in — I like the Ithaca of houses and stores and roads well enough — but Ithaca in the woods — fabulous!

Official head count:  12 hikers, two dogs

You can see nine more photos by me online here.

You can see Annie’s online photos here — she’s started to include photos taken on the drive back home after the hike — I think some of these rural drives are the next best thing to walking in the woods for great scenery..

Do you like challenges and contests? Think you’re observant? Annie tucked a joke into the set of photos she took on our midweek hike the week before, in Yellow Barn SF — if you can find it, contact me — you get two chances — if you succeed, I’ll mention your name as a winner in our next hiker posting — we have one winner so far, Brenda

 

Saturday Oct 31

Abbott Loop, north leg from Michigan Hollow Road to The Pinnacles look-out, followed by a get-together at Hank’s

Another great walk-and-party in Danby to wrap up what turned out to be a two-weekend Halloween spectacular for us. Weather about the same as our pre-Halloween hike-and-party the week before except no wind this time, so it felt milder. One other difference this time — more costumes. (That’s Hank, as a Viking.)

A couple of firsts — first frost clearly visible on the shrubbery as we stepped off ….
and my first hot dog from The Piggery — better than the NYC kosher-type hot dogs I normally love, but a bit more expensive …
a great pop when you bite in, thanks to natural casings
Official head count, almost exactly the same as the week before: 25 hikers, four dogs
As promised, we made it up to The Pinnacles, though not everyone arrived in time for the official Pinnacles group shot — I fiddled with my camera settings to make sure there was enough light on the faces — so the background’s a bit bleached — but the figures pop out nicely. You can see an un-fiddled group shot in my online photos if you want to see what the background actually looked like.

The woods looked great and the temps were just right for the vigorous climbing this trail requires both going and coming. Most people chose to sit inside at Hank’s, but a group of us stayed on his deck the whole time, and it was lovely.

You can see 11 more shots by me online here

You can see Annie’s online shots here.

You can see Jack V’s online shots here.

 

Sunday Nov 1

Hammond Hill State Forest, Dryden

The National Weather Service released its prediction for Nov-Dec-Jan on Oct 15 — supposed to be warmer than average, with average precipitation.
These predictions are often dead wrong, but they sure predicted right for Nov 1 — spectacularly nice morning in the woods, felt like early summer — this is our traditional group shot on the way back to the cars — a number of hikers not shown — a big group broke away and raced off up the trail several minutes before our scheduled start time — the main group of us who left on time never caught up to them — I don’t like starting early myself but some hikers have a mind of their own — if you know the players, maybe you can guess who led the early charge and why from this photo
There was a big crowd of Nordic skiers doing a fall cleanup of the ski trails while we were hiking, but this state forest is so big and sprawling we hardly saw any of them — I didn’t see any NWS predictions for snowfall — I’m sure the skiers want a repeat of last winter — please not

I thought the leaves might be mainly fallen here because of the high elevation, but there was lots of beautiful color left and the trails really looked great.
Official head count: 31 hikers, seven dogs

We’ve now entered the infamous three cloudiest months in CNY — I know some people get depressed by the low light — if it’s any consolation, we have an excellent hiking program coming up — it’s very cheerful in the woods with our group even on a dark day.

You can see eight more photos by me online here

You can see Jack V’s photos here

Click on any photo to see a full-size, high-resolution version.  

Click again to blow this version up.

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Hello Hikers!

 

Wednesday Oct 21

Yellow Barn SF, Dryden

It’s always fun when something unexpected suddenly breaks the routine of a hike — provided it’s not something bad, of course — we were walking through this lovely state forest on a woods road when we came upon a hunters’ platform about 20 feet up in a huge tree — up scrambled Norm — way to go …. but he’s a younger guy, so how impressive is that really? — then, up went Gopi — OK, that’s impressive …. she’s 75 — the rest of us greatly enjoyed the show

Not quite sure who the climbers are? Here’s a view of them from the other side

I like to come to Yellow Barn SF in particular in October because there’s a large area of bright yellow leaves that I can count on every year — I love the intense luminous glow the leaves cast onto the trail.

We were walking along the edge of a field when we started to feel something like spider webs or cobwebs getting in our hair and on our faces and eye glasses — it was tiny whitish worms dangling on threads at head level from the trees — first time I ever saw this strange sight.

If you look at the hike photos regularly you can’t help notice there’s certain hikers who show up at basically every hike — these are our super-regulars, and it’s distressing to the rest of us when one of them has to stop hiking for health reasons — our super-regular Brenda had to stay home for more than three weeks after some minor surgery — she was finally able to get back out with us —

It started to rain on our way back to the cars — we pretty much all had brought rain gear but it was so mild and the rain had such a sweet, lovely quality, half of us chose to leave the rain coats off —  a fantastic morning, and I was sorry when the hike wrapped up

Official head count: 15 hikers, five dogs

You can see 11 more photos online by me here.

You can see Annie’s online photos here

 

Saturday Oct 24

Abbott Loop, south leg up to Bald Hill Road, followed by a get-together at Hobit’s

Great atmospheric morning for a hike up my favorite trail — chilly, dark and blustery outside the shelter of the trees ….

…. not quite so pleasant for sitting around outside at Hobit’s get-together afterwards — only a hard core of us stayed out in the yard — we got to see a very impressive display of tumbling by Hobit’s athletic 15-year-old son Jake, who does flips on the trampoline and off the deck — he was clearly energized by the cool conditions – he’s working up to do a double flip

This leg of the Abbott Loop is extremely shady in summer but it really opens up beautifully at this time of year, and you can clearly see how delightful the terrain is — a lot of the leaves were down and they made for a fantastic bright carpet

Here we are in the boggy area I like so much — it was unusually dry, almost no mud, streams barely running — looked like some of the fallen trees that litter the area were cleaned up — I hate to say it but it wasn’t as much fun for me — a little too sanitized — I love it when the streams are full and the mud is thick

The main group of us didn’t try to get up to The Pinnacles look-out, but a small group of speedy hikers did go all the way — they got back in about 2 hours 10 minutes, and they said they could have done it faster

One hiker wore a (very minimalist) Halloween costume — very amusing to those of us who know him

…. tin foil hat …..

Official head count: 23 hikers, four dogs

I was one of the few hikers who stayed outside at Hobit’s the whole time — the secret to doing this is to wear two coats and two hats at once — great selection of hot dogs and Italian sausage — lots of people were inside, and the food was reportedly great there, but I didn’t venture in until I was leaving

We were happy to get our first view in weeks of another regular hiker who’s been knocked off the trail for medical reasons, Dave B — mugging with my favorite hiker ….

You can see eight more photos by me online here.

You can see Annie’s photos of the hike here

 

Sunday Oct 25

Bock Harvey Forest Preserve, Enfield

It’s not hard to start feeling sad when you hike around Ithaca, if you begin to notice the rocky, muddy, barren-looking soils, and you become aware of the hit-and-miss rainfall, and then you think of the generations of farmers and their families who tried to squeeze a living from this inhospitable combination.

I used to think about this in general, and feel glad all those struggling local farmers evidently were able to find some more productive way to make a living. Then Dave B started hiking with us a year ago, and suddenly we had a real-life example in our group. Dave grew up working with his dad on what’s now the Bock Harvey Forest Preserve — you can clearly see the land’s not that great for farming — there are a small number of very prosperous dairy farms in Tompkins County but Dave said his family farm wasn’t one of those — in Dave’s case, he managed to move on from cutting hay and attending cows to become a highly successful author of college-prep math textbooks and study guides.

I expect there are similar stories connected with all the beautiful trails we walk on that used to be farms and are now woods — we’re always coming on old stone walls or excavations or even patches of grass that used to be farmsteads — I hope those people managed to move as successfully as Dave did from such a demanding and precarious life. Anyway, their loss is now our gain.

(If you think the farm sector is looking good in Tompkins because of all the artisanal farms starting up, you’re mistaken. There’s an interesting survey of the ag sector here published just this summer. Only 125 farms in the county had more than $40,000 in annual sales in the most recent survey. Only 213 had sales of more than $10,000.)

Aside from melancholy thoughts of a hard farming past, we had a great hike here — more fabulous atmospherics — rain on the way to the trail head, gloomy, 10 degrees warmer than Saturday — the leaves looked wonderful

Official head count:  27 hikers, four dogs

There’s a new outhouse built here over the summer, open to the air — here’s Margaret demonstrating it — just pretending, of course — that’s Dennis and Leigh-Ann standing guard — photo totally faked, but I like it anyway.

You can see 11 more photos by me online here.
You can see Annie’s photos online here.

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More photos:

Sheep:  Annie and Margaret encountered a big herd of sheep on their way home from our recent hike at Virgil Creek dam.  Includes a video!

Four Corners:  New regular hikers Mark and Ellie recently went hiking in the Four Corners area of the southwest.  There are a lot of shots  —  you really get a thorough idea of what it looks like out there