A young piebald deer is a frequent visitor to our rural area.

Deer, including a piebald deer on the left, graze in our backyard.

A young piebald deer is a frequent diner in our local rural area.

Already blessed with an abundance of nearby trails to enjoy, Lori and I have been exploring some of the other options in the Finger Lakes area. We’ve had a very wet summer and fall making some trails muddy messes. (At least our rainfall was uniformly distributed unlike our unfortunate neighbors in the south getting clobbered with torrential storm destruction.)

We checked out Birdseye Hollow State Forest and found the main northeast-to-southwest trail was too swampy to enjoy.  The Finger Lakes Trail part going through the State Forest looked like it may have parts at higher elevations that could have drained a bit better. Sanford Lake looked promising for a short relaxing paddle and an easy launch at a nice boat launch on the south end. We ended up walking about 4+ miles along a trail section from Sanford Lake and up a dirt road through some nice woods.

Finger Lakes National Forest looks much more promising for hiking.  It’s along the ridge separating Cayuga and Seneca Lakes.  It’s an interesting mix of hardwood forest and open pasture lands in active use by local farmers.  We sampled a few miles of the No-Tan-Takto and Interloken trails and thoroughly enjoyed them–we will be back for some more serious exploration of the extensive possibilities.

Lori waits for straggling hike-buddy on dirt road in Birdseye Hollow State Forest.

Lily pads on Sanford Lake in Birdseye Hollow State Forest.

An unusually wet summer and fall left many trails wet and muddy.

Lori is on the Interloken Trail in Finger Lakes National Forest.

Lori in an open pasture at the north end of the Finger Lakes National Forest.