Opps! ...one more day hike!

While down loading the official application for the Finger Lakes Branch Trail End-To-End Award, I noticed that the Queen Catherine Finger Lakes trail loop, was a required loop. Somehow or somewhere I had read that any branch trail under 10 miles was not required.
...Anyways - I decided to hike The Queen Catherine Marsh and Montour Falls Historic Loops today (Tuesday - September 29, 2009). Both maps are in my Finger Lakes Trail Map Binder and both are an easy day hike with no backpack. The trails are relativily flat and pass through interesting woods; marshes; by several historic markers and into several glens. The 14 mile hike took a little over 4 hours.

To see a map of the hiking route, click on the link below.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=42.527784,-77.644501&spn=0.469589,0.88028&z=10&msid=104585491248441541983.00046d32da0deeeaf38c2

When the page opens,

1. Click on "My Maps" and then:
2. Click on the Queen Catherine Marsh and Montour Falls Historic Loops listed on the left side of the web page.

A few photos taken along the way are chronologically arranged below.

Two young, naive deer along the Catherine Valley trail. Hunting season begins in a matter of days!

Montour Falls

Sullivan Trail markers; indicate the 1779 location where the Seneca Indians were driven westward to their Bristish allies in the Fort Niagara area by Revolutionary War American troops first venturing into the Finger Lakes.

Eagle Creek Falls in the Havana Glen Park. This would make a nice, family day trip!

The pedestrian bridge is out, so off came the hiking boots to ford the Diversion Channel east of Montour Falls.

A short video clip of the Catherine Creek Wildlife Management Area

Back at the south end of Seneca lake - End of the Trails!

Backpacking the Conservation Trail finishes The Finger Lakes Trail System

Trekking Northward!

Once again my son Todd dropped me off at the trail head of the Conservation Trail near West Valley, NY; late in the afternoon of my 63rd birthday [9/10/09] as he traveled back to Pennsylvannia.
You can see the 119 mile trail by clicking on the link below and then clicking on My Maps and then clicking again on The Conservation Trail.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=42.527784,-77.644501&spn=0.469589,0.88028&z=10&msid=104585491248441541983.00046d32da0deeeaf38c2
September 10 - 15, 2009

Below is a sequence of photos taken as I backpacked north to Niagara Falls. The starting elevation (2000 ft) and topography (hilly) decreased as I worked my way northward to the flatter lake plains, before heading west and again north to the trail's end at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls NY.
With the completion of this solo backpack, I have completed the main East-West Finger Lakes Trail and ALL of the Branch Trails associated with the Finger Lakes Trail System in less than a year ... a total of 840 miles.
(http://www.fingerlakestrail.org/)

Fording a stream First signs of autumn. The Holland Ravines with their extensive ladders & steps

Crossing pipe lines in a "sugar bush"

The topography "flattens"

The trail now follows flat "rails to trails" and parkways

Flat and monotonous!

The Niagara River Walk towards the south bridge to Grand Island

Crossing the bouncy, noisey bridge (I-190) to Grand Island

Bivouac at Beaver Island State Park
Getting a early start!
On the Parkway north to the North bridge off Grand IslandView towards Niagara Fall from the high point on the noisey, North Grand Island Bridge
...still flat and monotonous!
The End: Straddling the International border on the Rainbow Bridge

Pototo Harvest 09

In late April I planted 15 lbs of seed potatoes. Yesterday I dug, washed, dried, and sorted 100+ lbs of Red Pontiac and Katadin potatoes for storage. Some were really BIG!

A Nose Job

After hiking so much of the Finger Lakes' Main and Branch Trails this past year, I volunteered with a GREAT Alley-Cat trail crew to construct "switch-backs" on Mt. Washington near Hammondsport, NY (August 31st - September 4th, 2009).

In my excitement to haul a large stone slab up and out of a near by ravine to construct a trail step; my feet slipped as tried to flip the slap up the steep ascent. The force I was using to flip the rock upward was transfered into forceful and downward "head butt" with the back flopping rock

...and the rock won!

Bob provided First Aid on the trail

The laceration with 5 stitches

Four hours and five stitches later to close the 1.2cm laceration on my right nostil; I was "off" the work crew under doctor's orders to give the wound time to heal and for the stitches to be removed.

P.S. The good news is there is no broken nose and or teeth.