Newsletter of the Cayuga Trails Club Founded in 1962 "to explore, enjoy, and preserve wild lands and places of natural beauty. .. " January-February 1998 Winter Edition Vol. 38, Nos. 1 & 2 Annual Meeting to Feature Cayuga Nature Center Director Dr. Janet llawkes. executive director of the Cayuga Nature Center on NYS Route 89. will be the featured speaker at the Cayuga Trails Club Annual Meeting on January 18. 1998. Her presentation is titled .. The Cayuga Nature Center and the Community." For many years. our club has combined the annual meeting with a banquet at an Ithaca-area restaurant. This year wi ll be different. In stead of an evening dinner, we will enjoy a leisurely buffet luncheon instead. The Jncheon at the Ramada Inn in Ithaca will begin at l :00 p.m. after a social beginning at 12:30. Please send in your reservation before January I 0. Fu rther information was sent to you in a separate mailing. The same information is The old, faded signs on the Abbott Loop Trail al so on page 7 of thi s issue of Cayuga Ji-ails . and at Diane's Crossing were replaced recently Janet Hawkes has been executive director of the with brand new ones. Photo by Doris Abbot t. Cayuga Narure Center for 2Y" years and has increased and improved educational activities dramatically for people or Next Walk, Look, :il l ages. Janet is a native Ithacan w ho e njoyed hi k ing local and Learn Hikes trails every Sunday \\·ith her famil y while growing up. She received a Ph.D. degree in education in 1993. Her resume Bring a Friend! is extensive including :igricultural development work in .January 11, 1998 the South Pacific and science and agriculture teaching at Robin Spry-Campbell will lead a hike or ski. Elmira BOCES. She also was Tompkins County·s Cornell depending on the weather, in Finger Lakes National Cooperative [xtcns1on Agent. In Forest. Robin emphasizes that the hike or ski will be of addition to her position at the Cay­ moderate pace. Meet at I :00 p.m. in the P & C parking lot uga Nature Center. she is managing in Trumansburg. This will be WLL 1-1 ike ='412. The editor of the journal Na11 1n: Swdy, national forest is located north of NYS Route 79 bet\\Ten published by the American Nature Burdett and Watkins Glen. NY. Studies Society. The organization Februarv 15, 1998 was founded by Liberty Hyde Walk, Look. and Learn Hike #413 \\·ill be a ski trip to Rail ey. director or Cornell's College the Bear Swamp area near Skaneateles Lake. Dave of Agriculture from 1903-- 1913. At Ruppert will lead. Meet at I 0:00 a.m. near the Tompkins >Ur meeting. Janel will describe the County Trust branch office at East Hill Plaza on Pine Tree new master plan anc.1 intcrpreti\-C Road in Ithaca. Dave will lead a hike around Cornell plan for the Cayuga Nature Center. Plantations if there is no snow for skiing. CA YUGA TRAILS The Finger Lakes Trail - How scouting party would be prudent. The rain actually stopped before the hike started, and 33 brave souls assembled for ---..... to Walk Halfway Across New the hike. The scouting party reported back-one stream York State and Enjoy It! was thigh-high with a very strong current. So we made an instant decision to switch the September and August hikes. by Nick Vandam, C. T.C. member and The September hike was shorter, and we did not have to walk through any water that was more than a foot deep! FLT End-to-End Hiker #74 Most of the trail was underwater that day, and the rest of The I 0th of May, 1992, was a perfect hiking the trail was all mud anyway. But we were rewarded in day-warm, sunny, low humidity, and no biting bugs. October with some spectacular fall color in my favorite About 70 hikers had assembled along Route 79 at the section in Schuyler County-the woods between Sexton eastern edge of Tompkins County for the first in a group Hollow Road and Sugar Hill Road. of six monthly hikes which would traverse the county Irene Szabo, Steph Spittal, and some others picked up along 50 miles of the Finger Lakes Trail. I had hiked the ball and led the 1995 hike series through Steuben three-quarters of the FLT in the county previously (in County. I really enjoyed just being a plain old hiker again more or less random fashion), but this hike series, without any "responsibilities." The drives were longer, but progressing from east to west, would give an entirely all of the trail was new to me. The most "interesting" hike different perspective- that the trail goes somewhere. in Steuben County was the mile-plus walk on Cochrane When we arrived at the opposite side of the county in Road just west of Bath. I timed my walk on that dusty dirt October, we could pull out the maps and see just how far road just as a sports car club rally went on the same road. we had walked! Everyone has favorite sections of trail. In We were treated to a fast-moving sports car with huge dust Tompkins County for me, it is the walk along Lick Brook clouds about every 45 seconds! Do lungs cope with dust gorge in the Sweedler Nature Preserve. The camaraderie any better than auto air filters? My favorite section was the among the hikers was special; each month we would catch Mitchellsville Gorge west of Route 54. up on the activities since the last hike. The hike series was My final county hike was the 1996 "Hike across the organized by the Cayuga Trails Club (actually, by Tom Genesee." However, I missed three of the seven hikes wilt. Reimers, with some able help). About 50 of the hikers an injury and other conflicts, so that my favorite section completed all the hikes and were awarded patches. was a make-up hike in April 1997. Just north of Pond In early 1993 I got a call from the FLT's End-to-End Road near Hume, the trail follows Wiscoy Creek for a Hike guru, Ed Sidote. Would I be interested in helping to couple of miles. In April the forest floor was a carpet of lead some hikes in Cortland County later that year? Yes! spring beauties. I have never seen wall-to-wall wild­ Especially since the eastern two-thirds of the county flowers like that. I estimate over I 00,000 of these small would be new trail for me. I noted that there was a gap of plants completely covered the ground! And of course, about 8 miles in Tioga County and a separate part of anyone who forded Slader C reek in May of'96 will never Tompkins County between the 1992 and l 993 hikes. We forget that hike. Until that day, my August 1994 Schuyler were able to include that gap in the 1993 series so that County hike was my wettest hike in 25 years on the trai l. hikers completing both series would have hiked 108 But Slader Creek topped it. consecutive miles of the FLT, which is one-fifth of the Meanwhile, I had been hiking other sections of the entire trail! Seemed like a good way to jumpstart interest trail in Allegany State Park and the Catskills. I became an in day hikers in finishing the entire trail in segments (it "End-AND-Ender" in 1995 by hiking to the eastern and worked for me!). My most memorable section in Cortland western ends of the trail. A solo hike in July 1996 was my County was the woods walk south of Stoney Brook Road, biggest adventure. I got a late start driving from Ithaca and but Hoxie Gorge was special, too! reached the trailhead at 2:30 p.m. for an 11-mile hike. A Next in line for 1994 was Schuyler County. Tom large "Posted" sign was in the middle of the trail! A Reimers coordinated the first three hikes, and I would couple of minutes later, a woman emerged from a nearby arrange the last three, starting on August 14. What a house to tell me that she had closed the trail. I asked her debut! Nearby Dryden, NY, had a tornado-like "micro­ why she closed the trail and she said she was upset that hikers were stealing wood from her woodlot, which was burst" funnel march right down Main Street. Our sched­ one-half mile from the road and 800 feet up a muddy one uled hike would have to ford two significant streams, and lane wagon road. On this warm day I convinced her that l after 2-4 inches of rain in several hours we decided a was not interested in stealing firewood, and she let me 2 CA YUGA TRAILS hike through. But the trees with trail blazes had been cut hardwood forests to farmers· tie Ids to dark coni fer fo rests down in places and the trail was badly overgrown. In foct. to cool shady glens to hackcoun try roads to lush ferns to I got lost five times in the t I miles. M y favorite one: I lost someone's backyard to \\·onderful wildllowers, and e,·cn tht: blazes and then spotted one 100 feet to my right. I the occasional paved road or patch of thistles or re\·crscd direction to find out where I wandered off the blackben-ies.