Day 46 (September 19, 2017)

Up early to a great breakfast of reconstituted potatoes seasoned with urfa pepper. Leave camp at 8:05 for some pleasant morning hiking. We spook a porcupine nosing around some tall pines and he makes an impressive getaway, scrambling straight up one of the trunks, disappearing in the needles high above.

Soon after we encounter some vandalized trail blazes, painted out with black paint. No sign of a re-route though, and the map says the trail's open -- a short section on private land closed during hunting season, but that's not for another 11 days so we should be in the clear. But eventually the blacked-out blazes lead us along an old woods road to a less ambiguous sign:

Here, presumably, the landowners have changed their minds about allowing the FLT through, and made their revisions in black paint and permanent marker. And they've done it very recently, since I got fresh copies of all the maps and newest trail info just weeks ago. And they couldn't wait a couple of weeks until the annual hunting season closure; they had to put a stop to it right away. This is sad. I wish for a more general embrace of the "right to roam" in New York State, in practice if not by law. This is evidence of a push in the opposite direction.

Also sad that the backtrack to the closest bypass is pretty far and leads to a significant amount of highway walking before rejoining the trail. Even locating the backtrack is hard, since the blazes in the opposite direction have also been painted out, a little more thoroughly even. After about a half hour it's obvious that we have left the trail, and failed to return. We've been following the wrong old woods road, and we're lost on a thick steep hillside with pockets of swampy mud. We're genuinely scared to try to find our way back to the trail closure lest we end up on the wrong side of it and further perturb a landowner who's clearly already irked at hikers.

Slightly panicked, we try our best to make a beeline for the nearest road, while skirting obvious private property. After an hour's bushwack and a knee-deep wade across the Trout Brook, we finally join up with an agricultural road that leads us back to NY highway 41, where we can pick up the trail's route. And nobody scolded us or shot at us. Phew.

After a short road walk we're in Taylor Valley State Forest. Signs here warn us of hazardous hiking due to an ongoing tree harvest, but it's actually serene and pleasant, though with occasional down trees and vehicle ruts. Getting pretty hot though. We'd planned to make camp here but are unable to find decent water, just mud and a frighteningly slimy pond. So we hike onward along the shady Cortland Two Road

and down toward the Cheningo Day Use Area, hoping for civilization to bless us with a garbage can. How precious it is to be able to dump even just three days of trash! No luck here through, just a pavilion with a couple picnic tables.

At least it's a good place for a quick rest in the shade. And there are a couple decent apple trees. But we decide to press on uphill to look for some nice water. And we found it!

A fast little creek, with a few gurgling cascades and pools deep enough to have a bit of a bath, great after a hot, tiring day. We need it too... today was supposed to be easy! Good camping is close by too, a really lucky spot.

Dinner is kale cornbread stuffing with beans and sausage -- perfection, but we're so tired and hungry that you'll have to take our word for it because there's no photo!

Day 45 (September 18, 2017)

All night, the soothing symphony of crickets and jake brakes from I-81. Late start - not yet adjusted to trail time. Steeply up to the Hoxie Gorge Lean-to for lunch, nice spot if a little trashy. Good flowing stream.

New York State is dotted with various state forests and wilderness areas, such as the Hoxie Gorge State Forest. Many were abandoned farm homesteads that were reclaimed by the state and are mainly used for recreation, and occasionally for logging. But most land is privately held, and a lot of it's still farmed. The Finger Lakes Trail Conference negotiates easements with these landowners to give the trail a route between the bits of wilderness. So a typical day on the FLT has a little mountain, a little forest, a little farmland, and a little road.

Today's that sort of typical day, and we're quickly back in the FLT groove, hiking in the open on a beautiful day between fields. One farm has a hilltop picnic table with a view, where we pause and study maps. 

Other fields are fallow, full of asters and goldenrod.

Back in the forest, we find wild parsnip and apples, maybe the remains of a century-old garden and orchard. This land has been through a lot over the years.

The afternoon is hot and we're eager to make camp and cool off. We find a pleasant bluff above a little stream and dine on the heaviest meal in the inventory, cous-cous and tuna, very fine!

Day 44 (September 17, 2017)

The route of the Finger Lakes Trail south of Cortland has changed since we last hiked (happens a lot with this trail) and now a couple of 2014's miles walked into Cortland no longer "count." Ah well -- a late start after a pretty good hotel breakfast & we grab a taxi to the spot where we left the woods 3 years ago. The driver warns us of alligators spotted in the area. 

At the trailhead, we're greeted by our bullet-ridden silhouettes.

The initial road walk takes us along the Tioughnioga River to a bridge where eight hearty youths are launching kayaks. They refer to us as "normal people."

East of the river the trail heads under the interstate, into the woods and up a hill. That's enough work for us on the first day out, with heavy loads and out-of-shape shapes, so we make camp amid some tall pines. For dinner, veggie chili over yellow rice, with a secret ingredient scavenged from a Turkish Airlines flight -- a packet of olive oil with lemon:

Accented by young dandelion greens, it's deep and complex, like a mole, delicious!

3 Years Later

Resuming this hike after 3 years! Lots of changes in the world. I can't drink Yuengling anymore, for instance. We've been busy... had a few other hikes in the mean time, including one long one in Europe. But starting tomorrow we're finally back on the Finger Lakes Trail heading east to the Catskills.

I've been reviewing the old blog entries and they're a bit wordy and whiny. Yes, there are annoyances and the highway is loud, but there's a lot of joy to be generated too, so let's focus there.

Today we were the loudness, zooming in a Greyhound right past Tuller Hill State Forest (where we left the trail in 2014) up Interstate 81 to Cortland. We'll take one last civilized dinner at the Green Arch (as is tradition!) and tomorrow, hit the trail!

The pool at the Cortland Hampton Inn is warm & familiar. Third best pool on our hike so far, after Carmen's Hotel in Canada and the Villager Motel in Watkins Glen.

The Green Arch has new owners but is still excellent. A little sad to have the old-fashioneds pre-muddled. (It used to take 15 minutes to get a drink here, but worth the wait!)

Stats and Final Thoughts

Day	Setting	Miles hiked	Miles by auto	Sleeping Arrangements
1	Road, High Park, Waterfront Trail, Glen Erin Trail	13.2	9.6 (bus)	Hotel (Glenerin Inn)
2	Kulham Trail, Road, Kelso Conversation Area	8.5	16.9 (bus)	Public campground (Kelso)
3	Bruce Trail	9	0	Unauthorized camping
4	Bruce Trail	14.7	0	Unauthorized camping
5	Bruce Trail	18	0	B&B (Dundas Glen)
6	Bruce Trail	13.7	0	Hotel (Homewood Suites)
7	Bruce Trail, Red Hill Trail	7	0	Hotel (Carmen's)
8	Bruce Trail	10.9	0	Established but probably unauthorized campsite
9	Bruce Trail	7.7	0	B&B (Crown Ridge)
10	Bruce Trail	9.5	0	Unauthorized camping
11	Bruce Trail	13.5	0	Patently illegal camping (Short Hills)
12	Bruce Trail	12.2	0	Hotel (Stone Mill Inn)
13	Bruce Trail, Brock Trail	14.5	0	Hotel (South Landing Inn)
14	Niagra River Recreation Trail, Road, Conservation Trail	7.5	0	Hotel (Red Coach Inn)
15	Conservation Trail, Road	8.3	14.6 (bus)	Hotel (Lafayette)
16	Conservation Trail	12.7	24 (taxi)	Official landowner-permitted campsite
17	Conservation Trail	13	0	Semi-authorized camping next to cabin
18	Conservation Trail	13.4	0	Unauthorized camping
19	Conservation Trail, Nature Trail Loop, FLT	15.1	0	Camping in Bear Creek State Forest
20	FLT	10.6	0	Camping in Bush Hill State Forest
21	FLT	21	0	Unauthorized camping
22	FLT	16.9	0	Hesse Lean-to
23	FLT	10	0	Airbnb (Dave's)
24	FLT	12	0	Bossard's cabin
25	FLT	13	0	Camping in Bully Hill State Forest
26	FLT	9.1	0	Hotel (Hornell Days Inn)
27	FLT, road detour	14.5	0	Burt Hill Lean-to
28	FLT	18.2	0	Hickory Hill Lean-to
29	FLT	8.4	0	Hotel (Vinehurst)
30	FLT	11	0	Camping in Birdseye Hollow State Forest
31	FLT	16	0	Official campsite in Goundry Hill State Forest
32	FLT	13	0	Camping in Sugar Hill State Forest
33	FLT	8.4	0	Hotel (Villager)
34	Watkins Glen (zero day)	0	0	Hotel (Villager)
35	FLT	10.5	0	Camping in Finger Lakes National Forest
36	FLT	16.2	0	Camping in Connecticut Hill Wildlife Mgmt Area
37	FLT	14.1	0	Sierra Lean-to in Robert Tremen State Park
38	FLT	15.6	0	Airbnb (Karenville)
39	FLT	14.8	0	Camping in Shindagin Hollow State Forest
40	FLT, short bushwack in Potato Hill State Forest	11.4	0	Camping in Robinson Hollow State Forest
41	FLT	13.1	0	Camping in Kennedy State Forest
42	FLT	13	0	Camping in Tuller Hill State Forest
43	FLT, road	9.5	0	Hotel (Cortland Hampton Inn)

About 513 miles hiked total, about 12 miles a day average. Sleeping breakdown was 16 nights posh (hotels, b&bs, airbnbs) and 27 nights rough (camping and primitive shelters.) These numbers aren't particularly impressive in the through-hiking world, but it's the way we like to do things! Thanks for sharing our trip, D&J

Day 43 (Sept 25)

Noisy hoots from an owl very close by, right at dawn. I guess that's our alarm clock. Let's do it.

Rough and washed out trail as we finish up Tuller Hill State Forest and wiggle down to civilization. A nice museum of rusty contraptions:

With heavy hearts we sign into the very last trail register:

And minutes later we're down on the road. Technically we're still on the Finger Lakes Trail for the next 3.6 miles, because it takes a very major detour north towards Cortland in order to get to a bridge across the Tioughnioga River. (That river doesn't actually look too deep. A few nicely placed boulders and I bet we could hop it.)

Along the way, this imposing totem to property rights:

This is elaborate but not atypical. In Canada I think I could count the number of "No Trespassing" signs on two fingers, but pretty much all the private land in New York State is posted. It's generally just the boilerplate "No hunting/fishing/trespassing for any purpose, violators will be prosecuted" but pictures of firearms accompanied by "We don't call 911" (or the slightly gentler "Protected by Smith & Wesson, THEN we call 911") are prevalent. Even many property owners who actually allow the FLT through will still have the POSTED spiel, right on the blazed trail. I wouldn't want to deny landowners the joy of hanging signs around, but perhaps they could be a little more lenient with their prohibitions. I'm imagining some sort of customizable set of rules akin to the Creative Commons licenses: 

"Private property,

No hunting / Hunting by permission only

Trespassing permitted / Trespassers must remain on trail

No camping  / Camping for 2 days max / No fires

No dogs / dogs on leash only," etc, all with cute little intuitive graphics. Well, a fella can dream.

We ruminate on these dreams as we walk, and with little warning, we arrive at the city limits of Cortland:

In the near distance, you can see where the sidewalk ends -- or for us, begins. Here are some sights from our tour of Cortland:

At what point does a hike really end? I think for us, at the Green Arch. We're lucky enough to get a table here for dinner -- what a fantastic place. It's like an Italian version of Peter Luger, with pork chops instead of porterhouses and old fashioneds instead of martinis. After a meal like this, there's no denying that we're no longer in trail mode.

Tonight, a soothing stay at the Cortland Hampton Inn. We chose this town because it has bus service to New York City, so tomorrow we'll hop the Greyhound and see just how unfit for city living we've grown. Fingers crossed. Thanks for sharing our journey! I'll post some coda and statistics soon.

Day 42 (Sept 24)

A joyful morning on Owego Hill. Can't recommend this little hill enough. Looks like there used to be a small mine or stone quarry here.

Amid our joy, a little unspoken sadness. The elephant in the tent is that this hike will soon be over; in fact this will be our last full day on the trail. We're not ready to leave, and we're not at all close to home... we're still weeks away from even our Plan B goal of reaching the Catskills. But we've got some slightly pressing bits of business back in the city that might not keep well without our intervention. Plus we're not really well equipped for the colder weather that the coming weeks will probably bring. Another reason is the fall deer season, which starts October 1 for archery hunters. A lot of the private land trail sections will start closing for the season. It's still a week away, but in that week we're not going to find a better place to bail than the town of Cortland (with bus service back to NYC), which we'll be quite close to tomorrow.

So it's settled. Let's enjoy our last day and night on the FLT.

We breeze down to the lovely Foxfire Lean-to, which we'd considered aiming for last night. No regrets -- doesn't look like anyone was here, but there's a lot of trash from what looks like a recent Polynesian-themed party, to which a large family of mice was invited towards the end. We haven't encountered a trash can since Karenville and we're actually carrying more garbage than food at this point, but knowing that we'll be in town soon, I can't help cleaning up a bit... tragedy of the commons and all that.

The weather is perfect: bright and warm with just a little cool wind. The trail is lush but well-kept. We cross over Greek Peak and Virgil Mountain, small-scale skiing destinations. We nab the very last blackberries from a well-picked-over bush.

The map indicates that we will pass an old boiler on the side of the trail:

Indeed! But what did it boil? And why here?

Shortly we pass "Gatherings, Restaurant and Cabins," also called out on the hiking map. But it's changed its mission and now just does events, the kind of events where you'd want a cabin nearby after dinner I guess... weddings, reunions? No longer of much use to passing hikers; it's locked up tight, but we're thrilled to avail ourselves of their dumpster.

Back into a lovely pine woods dubbed Tuller Hill State Forest. Sadly it seems the whole place is subject to the constant drone from nearby Interstate 81, but here's where we'll spend our final night on the trail. There's a shelter here, Woodchuck Hollow Lean-to, decked out with Bibles and flags and patriotic bunting. No one there, but it sort of still feels claimed. Not that great a structure anyway, says Deb, and no table. We continue, but not far, because there's not far to go -- another few miles and we'll be down by the highway. In a soft spot near a rushing brook, we pitch our humble home for the last time.

Cheer up! Here are some more lovely fungi: