Nearing the end of prime Fall color season, we returned to a favorite hike at Sweedler Preserve, just minutes from our house. The steep trail was strewn with colorful wet fallen leaves making the footing a bit slick at times. As is often the case, we had the hike all to ourselves. Nearby Buttermilk Falls State Park lures most of the tourists, leaving Sweedler and Thayer Preserves to far fewer visitors.

Quite the visual feast is jammed into the relatively short loop hike: waterfalls, hemlocks, a wide variety of deciduous trees, eskers, a flood plain with an explosion of wildflowers in early summer. Resident squirrels and birds reminded us of our visitor status as we passed through.

It’s been quite a beautiful Fall this year and we’ve been fortunate to get in several hikes to enjoy it. Nature will soon be scrubbing the remaining colors away in preparation for Winter.

On another gorgeous Fall day, we walked for a couple miles along the South Hill Recreation Way. Our original plan, hiking Logan Hill in Candor, was thwarted by a steep and narrow one-lane dirt road with no place to park out of the way near the trailhead–I’ll bet the trail doesn’t get used a lot. We decided to look into the South Hill trail as a Plan B since we have been curious about it having driven past many times.

The trail is easy, relatively flat, and was particularly gorgeous this time of the year. The east half of the trail is very scenic with beautiful hardwood trees and dramatic steep gullies and gorges on either side. The west half is through a more residential area, not nearly as scenic, and is busier.

We can imagine this trail must be quite busy all year round with convenient access by locals to walking, jogging, bicycling, and skiing.

Wanting to enjoy another hike during our exceptionally nice Fall this year, we selected Fillmore Glen State Park near Moravia NY. It’s named after Millard Fillmore, the 13th president of the US (and usually in lists of the top 10 worst presidents in our history).

The beautiful gorge trail, which we’ve enjoyed in the past, was closed due to damage so we opted to walk a loop around the rim trails. Whether walking the north or south rim trails, hikers are immediately confronted with substantial up-hill trudges to get to the heights above the gorge. We started on the south rim and returned on the north rim. The north rim trail is our preference–it’s scenic and wanders through some very nice hemlock forests.

We are fortunate to live in a place with easy access to a multitude of beautiful natural areas within a few minutes drive of our house.  Among those is a little gem, the Stevenson Forest Preserve, part of the Finger Lakes Land Trust.

This preserve, at 83 acres and less than 2 miles of trails, makes up for its modest size with some beautiful (and rare) 150-year-old hemlock woods as well as several other distinct woods and a large variety of other features.  Oak, maple, ash and many other trees provide a canopy over vernal pools, ferns, and a wide variety of sylvan vegetation.  Mature old woods and expanses of young saplings share the hilly landscape. One trail leads a short way to an open field along the woods edge providing a nice vista to the east.

This site packs a lot into its diminutive size and provides a beautiful and relatively quiet alternative to the bigger, better-known parks in the area. We look forward to returning in the Spring to enjoy a completely different experience as nature goes through its cycles.

A beautiful early Fall day lured us out for a hike in Danby State Forest at the southern end of Tompkins County. We spent four hours hiking around the Abbott Loop Trail.   At 8 miles and a lot of sometimes-steep hills to navigate, it was a nice workout for the morning. The trail was entirely under a varied tree canopy except for a couple dirt road crossings and a limited lookout on Bald Hill on the west side of the loop.

Our consensus was the woods were mostly not quite as appealing, with a few exceptions, as some other locations we’ve hiked. Our experience was enhanced by the perfect cool weather, the quiet (due to remote location), no bugs, and we encountered only one other person the entire time we were out. It was a superb day but not a hike that’s high on our must-revisit list.

We’ve developed a tradition of paddling on Owasco Inlet every Spring.

This Sony RX10 III got dumped into muddy water and is beyond (reasonable) repair–note the water in the lens.

Our annual Spring paddle on Owasco Inlet took an unexpected turn as we returned to shore. Lori stepped out of her canoe into a few inches of water over thick mud, couldn’t move her feet and promptly fell over into the muddy water.

Lori expressed her dismay with a long string of loud obscenities. I was looking at the reaction of a group of young Mennonites on the shore and carelessly ended up in the same fate (and the same mud).  Unfortunately for me, I had a devil of a time getting up and balanced as my feet sank into a foot of mud; I toppled over a few times before finally floundering to shore. Lori was torn between laughter and concern.

When my canoe capsized during my struggles, it dumped my camera into the muddied water.  It took a little more sloshing about to find it and fish it out of the muck.

I’m always well-prepared for the possibilities like this–I have a waterproof padded case for the camera.  Only I neglected to latch the lid so the case and camera went their separate ways during the melee.

We were both muddy wet messes and so was all our gear.  We squished through the process of loading everything up on the car and prepared for the long wet drive home.

It took a couple hours to clean everything up when we got home, the car was a mess, and my camera is officially toast.

Other than that, it was a lovely Spring day on Owasco Inlet.

They’re everywhere: deer and dandelions.

Our friend Stella joined us for Thanksgiving and a post-Thanksgiving recovery hike at Sweedler Preserve in Ithaca. The weather was brisk if our pace was not.

There is a lovely esker running down the Lick Brook gorge in Sweedler Preserve that features dramatic side drop-offs.

A young buck paused amidst the similarly-colored goldenrod making him difficult to spot unless he was moving.

Can you spot him? He blended in quite well as he slowly passed through our field of past-prime goldenrod.

Update Nov. 17: Our buck has returned and is less shy than during his initial visit. Now he feeds contentedly in our yard.