Back to the Conservation Trail

 Marie and I completed day one of our hike to finish the Conservation Trail, the last of the branch trails in the Finger Lakes Trail system that we need to complete (to get a patch of course).

We've done the Onondaga Branch (which the NCT follows), the Crystal Hills Branch, the Interlochen Branch, the Bristol Hills Branch, the Letchworth Branch, and Maps 1-7 of the Conservation Branch. Maps 8-12 to go over the next few days.

We are doing lower mileages this year. Marie hasn't been feeling too well, and my knees aren't what they were. That's OK, we'll still get there. Some of the trail looked like this.

Some of the trail looked like this... recently mowed.

I'm very sorry to tell you that an awful lot of the trail looked like this. We were trying to be very careful about poison ivy, but soon realized we were going to spend a fair amount of time wading in knee-deep (higher than that on me) ivy and other weeds and berry bushes. Sigh.

Part of the day we wandered near Elevenmile Creek. Water is pretty low, but it was nice to see it anyway.

The best find of the day was just before we got into Darien Lake State Park. We were going to go 0.2 mile farther before we stopped for lunch, thinking we'd find some amenities in the park. But we came to this stone slab bench and decided that we should take advantage of it. What a great decision! There was not any place decent to sit through the park. The stone was delightfully cool on this hot and humid day, and it was a big flat surface on which to spread lunch with no P.I.

We finished in good time, went to our host family's home, stripped and took showers because of the poison ivy, and did laundry to get the oil off our clothes.

There is only one more day of this hike that has "natural" trail. Then it's all hardened bike trail. There is a big part of me that isn't really enthused about the bike trail. However, there is also a big part of me that is extremely thankful we probably have only one more day of unavoidable ivy, and terrible footing.

We are tired despite the lower mileage. We had to get up early because it was a 2-hour drive to get to the trail. The heat is bad. Tomorrow is supposed to be all-day thunderstorms and heavy rain due to the tail end of the hurricane. We are not going to hike. We have enough time to choose that option, and although a little rain would be no big deal, dodging lightning and getting totally soaked have low appeal for me any more.

Miles hiked so far in 2024: 278.1. Finger Lakes Trail miles hiked in 2024: 8.8 (got to track this because we'll also be able to get this year's 50-mile patch)

Conservation Trail- western NY, Getman Road to Sumner Road. 7.0 miles

See Truth and Fiction