Tag Archives: Keuka Outlet Trail

F.L.T. and Me

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I was excited when we moved from Bloomfield to Bath, back at the end of 1995, because we’d be living close to the Finger Lakes Trail. And in the spring, guided by my official Steuben County road map, I started thoroughly enjoying it. It must have been a year or two later that I pulled a membership brochure from the registration box east of Aulls Road on M13, figuring that if I was going to keep walking on the trail, I ought to pay something to help with the upkeep.

And on I went, cheerfully hiking, until late October 2005, when I started to feel – off. And on November 1 I crashed. Losing weight. Dropping blood pressure. No interest in food. Constantly falling asleep. Losing muscular strength. Forgetting things. And feeling cold – horribly, horribly cold. I’d lie in a warm bath as long as I could manage, but would soon be shivering again. Our cat was my best friend, pressed up against me as I lay covered up in bed wearing multiple layers of clothing.

Not much hiking in the spring of ’06, though I just managed to lead a hike uphill along the Mitchellsville Gorge. As we approached the County Route 13 my vision suddenly became like a photo negative for about sixty seconds, and that was the last hike. By June I had lost almost 60 pounds, and I couldn’t sit up without a chair back to support me. I figured that I had less than a month to live, and most of my family and friends figured the same. At just about the last possible moment doctors pulled the right diagnosis out of a hat. Addison’s Disease – a vanishingly rare wasting condition, incurable but easy to treat, with steroids twice a day to replace those that my body no longer generates. I started taking them on a Saturday, and on Tuesday noticed just a little spring in just a few steps. One August day I had an explosion of strength and energy, climbing steep trails all over Mossy Bank Park.

But that was it. Just one day. I ate again, I regained weight, I stayed awake, I no longer suffered that Dante-esque cold – but I was still worn down, and beaten down. In February ’07 our elder son Josh dragged me out to Penn Yan and Keuka Outlet Trail, and we managed a few hundred yards each way, despite a cold wind and about three inches of snow. After we finished I was shaking at Dunkin’ Donuts – not from cold, but from depletion.

We went back a week later, and we even got an early spring that year, with snakes and frogs and turtles and all. I’d walked the entire route (a rail trail) before, and with Josh’s help determined to do it again, and by summer I had! (Twice, in fact, walking out and back in segments.)

I returned to the FLT, and at some point I completed walking the Main Trail from one side of Steuben County to the other. (Twice) Then I decided that I would work very deliberately on my recovery by completing Bristol Hills Trail. I had done much of B3, so piece by piece I finished it below Bean Station Road, then went on toward B2. The BHT has a lot of ups and a lot of downs, and some are steep and some are long, so it was a struggle for a guy doing this in order to recover his strength. And in early July of 2010 I walked from the north and west into a little shop in Naples and celebrated with a sandwich for finishing the BHT. Once I’d hiked back to my car I gave myself a round of applause for having end-to-ended it twice.

It took me a couple of years to get the new Crystal Hills Trail done (twice), and a couple of weeks later I started on the wonderful Interlaken Trail, just finishing (twice) before winter weather set in.

Being alone in the woods and the fields gives my PTSD soul a world of good. But now… literally… where do I go from here?

Though my Addison’s is under control, I still only get a few hours of output each day, and that’s EVERYTHING – hiking, driving, paying bills, writing articles, washing dishes – whatever. So driving an hour, hiking for two hours, and then driving back, withdraws four hours from the bank for that day, which is pretty close to the limit.

Soooo… I re-hike trails, of course. I’ll surely do the Interlaken again, and probably the Crystal Hills. I’ve just replaced my maps, so I’ve already started doing re-routes. There’s much of the Greenway Trail I haven’t done, and trails in Keuka Lake State Park. I’m doing the Outlet Trail again this year (and I’m almost done!).

It’s a blessing that my wife and our sons are incredible supporters, and are willing to live with my limitations. I owe the world to them, and to Josh in particular for dragging me out that day… and to my doctors… and to the Outlet Trail… and to the Bristol Hills Trail. And to the Finger Lakes Trail, a footpath across New York [the parts I can easily reach, anyway], forever.

The Little Land Between the Lakes

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Yates County has shoreline on Keuka Lake… and Seneca Lake… AND Canandaigua Lake. How cool is that?

It’s never had a magnet attraction like Watkins Glen State Park, or Watkins Glen International, or Corning Museum of Glass. But all that lakefront means that Yates gets plenty of company anyway, all summer long.

There’s a long-standing story that Red Jacket, the charismatic Seneca leader, was born in the Penn Yan area, where we even find Red Jacket Park. And we know that his mother lived nearby at the end of her life, but actually no one knows where Red Jacket was born.

Sullivan’s invasion rampaged through the region in 1779, killing and burning indiscriminately. Some of the first Europeans to muscle in permanently were followers of pioneer prophetess Jemima Wilkinson, the “Publick Universal Friend.” They came to Torrey in 1778, but later moved the center of their community to Jerusalem. Claiming to be (or at least, to have) a divine spirit, she ruled her flock imperiously until she “left time” in 1819, after which her following withered away.

They had worked hard and well, though, and Penn Yan grew largely from their labors. Lying at the foot of Keuka Lake, it became a busy transshipping town. By 1833 a canal, and then later a railroad, connected with Dresden (still in Yates) on Seneca Lake, and thence to the Erie Canal system and the entire world. Penn Yan and Hammondsport (in Steuben County) became rivals (sometimes friendly), but neither could get along without the other. Each was a vital link in Keuka’s transportation chain.

Yates was set off from Ontario County in 1823, and uninspiringly named for the governor who signed the enabling act. The county later gained land from Steuben, but lost to Tompkins and Seneca.

There are nine towns in Yates County (Starkey, Barrington, Torrey, Milo, Benton, Potter, Middlesex, Italy, and Jerusalem), including four incorporated villages, (Penn Yan, Dresden, Rushville, and Dundee). Branchport and Bellona are unincorporated communities.

Penn Yan is the largest town, the county seat, and a fun place to visit. The county fairgrounds are here, and Main Street is a good place to stroll and shop. There’s a “new book” store (Long’s Cards and Gifts) and two used book stores. Millie’s Pantry offers lunches and gifts, with proceeds making sure children get enough to eat.

Yates County History Center has, among other things, notable Jemima Wilkinson memorabilia, including her coachee (a cut-down carriage – she liked her comforts). Penn Yan also has a movie theater and a very nice Carnegie Library (one of very few in the region). This library has recently undergone significant renovations, though it still retains space for buggy parking. Branchport recently completed a brand-new library, plus there’s a library in Dundee and reading centers in Rushville and Middlesex.

Jerusalem is home to the dramatic Keuka Bluff, that high formation that juts out into the lake to form the East Branch and West Branch, both of which lie largely in Yates. The Bluff is home to Keuka Lake State Park and also to the jewel-box Garrett Chapel, a beautiful stone structure hidden in the forest overlooking the East Branch.

Yates County has two weekly newspapers (the Observer and the Chronicle-Express), not to mention Keuka College (founded 1890) and a public-use airport. As traditional family farms have gone out, conservative “plain-dress” anabaptists have moved in. It’s no surprise that vineyards line much of the lakeshores. The wonderful Keuka Outlet Trail stretches from Penn Yan on Keuka Lake to Dresden on Seneca.

Yates is a small county, and sadly easy to overlook. Lacking a magnet attraction it’s not necessarily the place people visit for short stays. But people make homes there. And they stay the summers. The little land between the lakes is not Brigadoon. But in the depths of World War II Arch Merrill observed that Penn Yan was a good community – the kind of place where you could ride out the storm.

Off-Season

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Off-season. Winter in western New York. What’s there to do?

*Quite a lot, actually, as long as you don’t mind being low-key – which is sort of what winter is anyway.

*Take a walk in a summer activity space, such as a fairground. See how it’s different… in fact, almost new. It will be quiet. You’ll likely have the place to yourself. Memories will surface, but distances will seem askew. You may notice features you’ve never seen before. Try taking pictures. I once got some very good shots of the snowbound fireman’s fair field in Hammondsport.

*Wander the waterfront. The marina space in Watkins Glen or Canandaigua is a new world off-season. Stroll up and down the docks (assuming they’re ice-free!) and remember what the place was like at the height of summer. Look out for overwintering waterfowl. From Hammondsport waterfront you almost always sees rafts of coots, gulls, and mallards.

*Try out a park. Some are no doubt closed, especially those out in rural areas. But pick your way through the in-town parks of Hammondsport, Bath, Elmira, Corning. What are the fountains like with the water turned off? What trees are slumbering in the parks, and when will they waken?

*Along those lines, we once visited Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in the dead of winter. We had the place to ourselves, just as though it were our personal game preserve. We could stop whenever and wherever we liked without worrying about backing up traffic, and take all the time we wanted with binoculars gazing across the flats.

*Of course, you can have off-season fun right in your kitchen or living room, if you put out a bird feeder. The bears are still asleep, but by Easter or so we’ll have to take the feeders in, unless we live right in the heart of town. On a daily basis we get red-headed woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, juncos, goldfinches, white-breasted nuthatches, black-capped chickadees. Out cat likes to watch as much as we do.

*Take an urban or village walk, assuming the sidewalks are clear. Steuben County Historical Society has walking-tour brochures for Bath. Some of our towns have heart-health walking routes.

*Twice in the past month I’ve been out walking on the Keuka Outlet Trail, at the Penn Yan end. In January we saw a bluebird… not our typical winter fare! We also inspected some recent beaver work, and glimpsed a muskrat in the offing.

*On my February trip I enjoyed just getting to know the Outlet area in the quiet and sleep of late winter. Much of the Outlet was frozen, at least until you crossed the footbridge downstream from Main Street, where mallards were huddled, just as they had been a few weeks earlier. Seeing the industrial buildings from beneath at this time of year makes you feel as though you possess arcane knowledge, vouchsafed to only a few.

*Besides heading downstream, I also crossed the hump-backed bridge over the Outlet and passed through the little park, then followed the trail a few hundred yards to its eastern terminus. Along the way I stopped at another bridge, under the trees, to watch the stream picking its way through the ice.

*And I came to he baseball field. Empty, deserted, and covered with snow, looking a little dilapidated, as all such places do at this time of year. But promising warmer days, and happy crowds, and summer sun. Back at the feeder, the goldfinches are starting to show their summer glow. “We are nearer to spring than we were in September.”

Rails-to-Trails… Seize the Way!

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As we’ve looked at in the past, our area owes a lot of its growth and development to the railroad. They aren’t what they once were, and arguably they don’t need to be. But as their tide has receded, they’ve left their mark on our shore, in terms of rail trails.

It’s one of those ideas that seems blazingly obvious once somebody puts it on the table. Take now-disused rail beds and turn them into trails for hiking, biking, and walking. They may offer a transportation advantage, and they certainly provide an opportunity for fresh air and exercise in the great outdoors.

On top of that, the trails tend to be straight, smooth, and level – just what the railroads want. That makes rail trails especially welcome to the older, the younger, the visually impaired, or anyone who has trouble with balance.

The 2011 Rails-to-Trails Conservancy guide book, “Rail-Trails Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York,” lists four trails right near us. Working outward from Corning we find:

1)The Painted Post Trail (roughness index 2). This is a very nice paved urban trail, just over a mile long. Because it slides through the neighborhoods of Painted Post – crossing over North Hamilton and under Victory Highway – you almost always meet others, from elderly folks enjoying a stroll to young families leading (or pushing) toddlers and teens or adults tossing Frisbees to dogs. There’s a historic cemetery on the way, plus the old DL&W depot, now Town of Erwin Museum, and one terminus is in Craig Park. The last time I was there, a couple of months back, construction blocked my way west from the depot.

2)The Big Flats Trail (roughness index 2). If you’ve had enough of the mall for a while, stop by Sperr Park on Kahler Road and spend some time on this lovely partly-paved trail. You’re just off I-86, just outside Consumer Square, and parallel to an active rail line. But it’s such a quiet, lovely walk. East of Kahler the trees overhang and reach each other, so it seems like you’re walking through a green tunnel. West of Kahler you walk along the park with its two ponds, keeping eyes peeled for waterfowl, and then through brushy fields and meadows with plenty of sky overhead. Sometimes you even see a sailplane. Big Flats Trail is 1.7 miles long.

3)Lambs Creek Hike and Bike Trail (roughness index 1 – the smoothest). This trail runs three and a half miles north from Mansfield, Pennsylvania (starting near the IGA). I’ve been on parts of this trail, but it’s been quite a while. It parallels the Tioga River, and the northern terminus is a a boat launch in Lambs Creek Recreation Area.

4)The Keuka Outlet Trail (roughness index 3 – the roughest). Wow! Who can say enough about this seven-mile trail between Penn Yan and Dresden? With just a little more walking on the east end, you can hike from Keuka Lake to Seneca Lake. At Penn Yan you can start by the ball field, go through a little park, cross the Outlet, walk under Main Street, and cross the Outlet again… meantime taking in the way the lovely stream and the ancient industrial architecture complement each other.

The guidebook includes such not-too-far-away trails as Ontario Pathways Rail Trail (Canandaigua to Stanley) and Genesee Valley Greenway (Cuba to Rochester). Missing from the book are our Catharine Valley Trail (Horseheads to Watkins Glen) and the Lackawanna Rail Trail, from Eldridge Park to Water Street and the Chemung River. (This one is neat because part of the time you walk a berm or causeway, looking down on Elmira.) I’ve done some or parts of all of them, and they’re all great. Hike, bike, stroll, amble. They’re not hard to get to, and they’re not hard to manage. Carpe viam (seize the way)!