the Way of the Turtle

13.5 Mile Ride on the Erie Canalway Trail (Danube to Mindenville)
Sunday, December 8, 2013

Left Syracuse early enough, and the weather was decent enough, that I was able to get in some riding before dark. I parked at the Herkimer Home State Historic Site - the former home of Revolutionary War hero General Nicholas Herkimer. No surprise, it was basically deserted, though a couple of people showed up while I was getting ready to ride - one to walk his dogs, the others looked like they were checking out the site.

I was hoping to complete the section of the Canalway Trail that runs from Fort Plain to Little Falls - I rode about half of it back in early November. Today I headed east to Mindenville, overlapped a bit of what I'd ridden a month ago, then headed back west part of the way to Lock 17. I turned back before I made it all the way to the end, mostly because it was getting late in the day and I wasn't sure how early the gates at the historic site would be closed.

Riding wasn't too bad, though my mountain bike makes for harder work than my road bikes... but with the snowy sections, patches of soft stone dust, and so on, the wider knobbies were a definite necessity. Along the way I saw lots of evidence of the trail's previous uses as a rail line (lots of old ties buried in the ground along the sides) and remains of some concrete structures - not sure if those were from the railroad or from earlier times when sections of the Erie Canal ran through the area.

On the way to Lock 17 there's a wetlands with an overlook marked as a birdwatching area - I'd definitely like to get back there in warmer weather. For that matter, I'd like to ride the entire trail during a warmer, greener time of the year.

Other than a couple of miles in Fort Plain which are tough to access because of a bridge that washed out during the flooding last June, and the last few miles of this stretch, I've ridden all of the offroad sections of the Canalway Trail between downtown Albany and Rome this year, and a good chunk of the sections between Rome and Rochester. I guess that's one of the pluses to spending a lot of time on my bike this year - and it's also research for an adventure I'm considering for a couple of years from now...

JMH