ANOTHER AFTERNOON OF (BRIEFLY) HIKING THE TRAILS OF PENFIELD
Monday, July 16, 2007
Penfield Parks Trails info (includes links to trail maps)
Wegmans Passport to Family Wellness program
After yesterday's race and hiking, my legs were feeling more than a bit fried. Combine that with the on-and-off drizzle we had this morning and early afternoon, and it becomes fairly clear why Ann and I decided to try some easy walks today - which would also give us a chance to add a few more sites to our Wegmans Passports!
Wild Iris Trail - this was the first trail we visited today, and one of the shortest walks of the thirteen options. The Wild Iris Trail runs through the Genesee Land Trust's Hipp Brook Preserve, one of only three Class 1 wetlands in Penfield. We parked at the trailhead (actually, along the side of a suburban road), doused ourselves with bug spray, and headed into the woods. I very quickly headed back out again to return to the car for a hat, because the deerflies descended on me in swarms. Even with the hat, it was a very buggy walk, and we moved pretty quickly along the wood chip trails and the short boardwalk. Not much to see - woods and swamp - and we finally bailed out at a second trailhead and walked along the streets to get back to the car, in hopes that we'd be able to leave the deerflies behind. That helped... but we really only got rid of them when we jumped in the car and drove off. trail map (PDF)
Monday, July 16, 2007
Penfield Parks Trails info (includes links to trail maps)
Wegmans Passport to Family Wellness program
After yesterday's race and hiking, my legs were feeling more than a bit fried. Combine that with the on-and-off drizzle we had this morning and early afternoon, and it becomes fairly clear why Ann and I decided to try some easy walks today - which would also give us a chance to add a few more sites to our Wegmans Passports!
Wild Iris Trail - this was the first trail we visited today, and one of the shortest walks of the thirteen options. The Wild Iris Trail runs through the Genesee Land Trust's Hipp Brook Preserve, one of only three Class 1 wetlands in Penfield. We parked at the trailhead (actually, along the side of a suburban road), doused ourselves with bug spray, and headed into the woods. I very quickly headed back out again to return to the car for a hat, because the deerflies descended on me in swarms. Even with the hat, it was a very buggy walk, and we moved pretty quickly along the wood chip trails and the short boardwalk. Not much to see - woods and swamp - and we finally bailed out at a second trailhead and walked along the streets to get back to the car, in hopes that we'd be able to leave the deerflies behind. That helped... but we really only got rid of them when we jumped in the car and drove off. trail map (PDF)
Veterans Memorial Park Fitness Trail & Nature Trail - Next we headed a short distance up the road to the Veterans Memorial Park, which actually has two Passport markers - one for the paved fitness trail, and one for the wooded nature trail. We started out by visiting the Don Mack Rock Garden, which had a number of interesting rocks, trees, and plants (at least, I thought they were interesting!) Then we headed over to the nature trail, recorded our visit in our booklets, and took a short walk through the woods. While the deerflies weren't as much of a problem, here we met a number of mosquitoes, which convinced us to cut our woods walk short just after we'd walked behind the fishing pond (where we saw lots of frogs!) We visited the Passport marker along the paved fitness trail, walked part of the perimeter of the soccer field, and then headed across the field back to the car to escape the bugs. trail map (PDF)
Thousand Acre Swamp - Since the Nature Conservancy's Thousand Acre Swamp Preserve is just up the road from Veteran's Memorial Park, we headed there for our final walk of the day. We visited the Thousand Acre Swamp a number of years ago, but not in the summer - given our experiences at the other two parks, we expected it to be very buggy and were unfortunately correct! So we settled for checking out the trailhead kiosk, marking our booklets, and picking up some Preserve info, rather than spending a lot of time donating blood to the 'skeeters and deerflies. I remember enjoying the trails there when we last walked them; perhaps I'll get a chance to go over there and run sometime this summer...
So not much walking, and lots of bugs... not the most successful of hiking expeditions. But we did manage to record four more markers in our booklets, leaving us with only four more to completely fill the Passport (and only one more to qualify for the drawing for the catered picnic - we qualified for our T-shirts today.)
JMH
