the Way of the Turtle

2.3 Mile XC Ski at the Brookdale Preserve and Along the Genesee Valley Greenway
Monday, January 19, 2009

Brookdale Preserve info
Genesee Valley Greenway info

After a fairly grey weekend, a bright sunny morning! So I dropped Ann off at work and after taking care of a few things back at the house headed out for a quick bit of XC skiing on the Greenway Trail before I needed to be back to pick her up.

Parked at the Brook Rd lot and noticed that there were ski tracks heading along the old canal embankment opposite the trail, so I decided to take advantage of the chance to go someplace new and headed off into the Brookdale Preserve, one of a number of properties managed by the Genesee Land Trust. It was fun skiing for a short distance, but then I hit brambles (ouch) and a downed tree blocking the path, so I popped loose the skis and hiked across the old canal to the Greenway Trail.

The Greenway gets plenty of snowmobile traffic in the winter, which makes for mixed results when skiing. On the one hand, it's great to not have to plow through a foot of unbroken snow (though that can be a lot of fun sometimes.) But the lack of tracks made it touch for me to keep to a straight course... I imagine it would be great for someone skate skiing. After crossing Brook Road I did try using the remnants of tracks left at the edge of the path by a previous XC skier, and that went pretty well... there were times when I actually got what felt like a decent, efficient glide going.

Turned around at the remains of the Dumpling Hill Lock; one of the fun things about getting out on skis or snowshoes is seeing things that I've visited many times before during a different season. At that point time was getting short so I headed back for the car so I could get home and wait for Ann to call to be picked up. Would have been nice to spend a little more time outdoors (especially with the afternoon given over to driving back to Albany) but despite that this was still a great way to spend part of the morning.

JMH