CNYHikes

     Exploring new places and stretches of trails was one of the original motivations for writing this blog in the first place, which is why I decided to hike further into Mariposa State Forest along the Finger Lakes Trail.  My intention was to hike out to where the FLT reached the junction with the Link Trail and return the same way I came as a good-distance out-and-back.  I made the mistake, however, of not looking up maps before I left my house, so I never quite made it all the way to the Link Trail (although I would later learn I came pretty close).      It was a warm early spring day (highs near 60) with abundant sunshine that was very welcome after nearly 2 weeks of grey skies and general dreariness.  I started my hike at a parking area just before the FLT crosses Paradise Hill Road (this is also not far from where my hike last summer in Mariposa Forest ended).  Hiking eastward, I immediately traveled parallel to that open field...

Last spring I ventured out to the only national forest in all of New York and explored what I have named the Foster Pond Area.  Not only has it been quite some time since I've blogged but also many months since I've visited the lovely Finger Lakes National Forest - 16,212 acres of mixed forests, pastures, and gorges sandwiched in between Cayuga Lake to the east and deep Seneca Lake to the west.  There's much to see in this not-so-well-known forest, and miles and miles of trails in which to do so.      On a sunny late winter day in the middle of March, I took the drive out to Hector, NY (a very scenic one, I might add) with the sole intent of hiking from the Ravine Loop Trail southward to the Gorge Trail.  I was a little anxious that there might still be some snow cover the further I went into the woods, but, fortunately, that was not the case and I had no issues with walking at all.  It's been a fairly mild winter by upstate New York standards so ...