Sunday, July 8, 2007
Old Erie Canal State Historic Park trail map (PDF)
photo slideshow
I lucked out on my drive back to Albany and the rain that soaked Rochester didn't hit the Syracuse area while I was passing through, so I headed over to the Manlius trailhead for the Old Erie Canal State Historic Site. The park is approximately 40 miles long and runs from Dewitt to Rome along a section of the Enlarged Erie Canal (the 2nd routing of the canal - the opened in 1825 and was enlarged in the late 1830's when it could no longer support the increased boat traffic. More info can be found in the Erie Canal article on Wikipedia, among other sources.) Sections of the Enlarged Erie Canal were abandoned in 1918 when the current Barge Canal was created. In some places these sections were filled in and built over; in others, they have been turned into parks, often with the towpath set up as a multi-use trail.
This path has been crowded some of the times I've been on it previously, but not today... on the ride down to Chittenango, I passed maybe half a dozen other folks. Had sunshine to start with, but it clouded over on my way back to the trailhead - I expected to get wet before my ride was done, but instead just ended up hot, sticky, and dusty. Passed my car at Manlius and headed west to the start of the park in Dewitt - encountered a few more people, possibly because of the section of trail I was on and possibly because it was getting later in the afternoon.
Along the way, I passed two old aqueducts which carried the canal across local creeks. Saw lots of bunnies and geese, and a snake (probably a brown snake.) Early on I spotted some fairly large fish in the canal, and in two places there were snapping turtles floating in the water... unfortunately, they submerged when I stopped to try to get a picture. The heron and the ducks with ducklings didn't seem to mind my wanting to take their picture, but unfortunately were too far off for me to get good shots of them. Probably the biggest surprise was the black and bright orange bird that flew across the path right in front of me at one point; I suspect he was a Northern or Baltimore Oriole.
All told, a good ride, and a nice start to riding this whole trail over the course of the summer.
JMH
