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White Brook Nature Area

~ randyaa ~ 4 Comments

Ohhhh man have I found a place for you.

I’ll admit it, I haven’t paid the White Brook Nature Area much attention before. Every time I’ve driven by there has always been a picnic/BBQ going on at the pavilion and I always assumed that’s all it really was. I stopped there for the first time today and whoa was I surprised to find a 2+ mile trail off through the woods.

It’s a great in and out trail (no loop available) too, well maintained and pretty scenic for such a suburban landscape. There’s a few bits of the trail that need some work however; A few planks on the boardwalk that are starting to pull up and a few places they could use some gravel fill. That said it’s mostly in good shape. The trail winds it’s way through cattails and groves of flowering bushes until you happen upon what the map calls a ‘large meadow’. They aren’t kidding. It took me close to 45 minutes and almost 40% of my (iPhone) GPS battery life to do the loop around it. From the entrance to the field I couldn’t even take a picture of it without stitching a few together.

The only place there’s a map on the property is on a small post once you get to the entrance to the meadow. I took a photo of the map so you could reprint it or distribute it however you want. I doubt the crescent trail association would have a problem with it.  Funny thing is I had no clue the White Brook Nature Area was part of the Crescent Trail.  So now I’ve come very close to hiking the whole thing, only a few miles left.

Or you can make use of my GPS map:
GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com

http://www.instamapper.com/trk?key=14633227609411538872&width=400&height=350&type=roadmap
I’m also trying something new so the GPS map of the White Brook Nature Area is also available as a Google Map.

Crescent Trail Through Hike

~ randyaa ~ 3 Comments

I found a few other maps of the Crescent trail the other day.

It got me thinking…

My current Saturday in the Park project has an end date. I don’t know what it is yet, but it’s there… looming. There are only so many parks despite my desire for them to be endless.

My next big project might be to coordinate a through hike of the Crescent Trail. It’s not that long, only 35 miles but I’ve never managed to complete a through hike/paddle yet. This might be a good starter!  It’s not going to be an easy one though.  There’s no camping available along the trail that I’m aware of just yet.  My first challenge: finding camping sites.

Who knows, maybe this year: The Crescent Trail, next year: The Appalachian trail!

Beechwoods Park

~ randyaa ~ 2 Comments

First, a confession:  Unlike the others, this is not being written on location at all, I’m writing it at home after going earlier today which is why it’s getting posted so late.

Beechwoods park is a neat little park.  I only recently discovered it while we were house shopping.  Haven’t had the chance to stop by until today.  The park provides some hiking trails along a pretty little brook and winds itself  between a few nice neighborhoods. There are a few bridges over the brook which take you to big open green sections that are maintained by the town.

There are 2 main entrances to the park, and a little over a mile in trails that loop between them.  The North entrance to the park is on High Street Extension and the South entrance to the park is off of Squirrels Heath Rd.  However; one of the really neat things about the park is there are TONS of entrances all over.  Not just hidden trails either, full on signed entrances, just without parking lots.  It seems like they were put in to give access to the park from the neighborhoods it goes through which is really nice.

Although I started my little walk at the north entrance I would suggest you start at the south parking lot and do the loop.  The reason is the north end seems to be a bit wet and a bit swampy.  The trail is in good shape and a little raised, but I have a feeling that come fly season it might be a bit overrun.

Beechwoods park is not a great hiking destination, it’s a bit small, only about a mile of trails, and if you’re not moving fast during fly season it might be a bit uncomfortable.

Beechwoods is a fantastic trail running or mountain biking location (I’m not sure if the town allows bikers or not but I saw tracks so at least some people use it that way).  it’s not overly long but if you’re looking for a quick workout or a place you can do some laps in the great outdoors it’s fantastic!

It’s also a great place to see some flora or fauna.  While I was there today I saw:

It’s a nice little break from the monotony of urban sprawl.

And as always, I’ve created a map of my little hike through Beechwoods park and you can see the path I took (with relatively decent accuracy, I’ll work on that) below.

GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com

http://www.instamapper.com/trk?key=15070518653028619441&width=500&height=350&type=roadmap

Perinton Park Locations

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Found a nifty little map of all the Perinton Parks.  Note this doesn’t include non-public owned properties like the High Acres Trail Area and there are other publicly usable areas within the town.  But this gives you a good idea of the location of the official town parks.

  1. Beechwoods
  2. Boat Launch
  3. Normandie Park
  4. Egypt Park
  5. Fellows Road Park
  6. Garnsey Arboretum
  7. Horizon Hill Conservation Area
  8. Indian Hill Recreation Area
  9. Kreag Road Park
  10. New York State Erie Canal Heritage Trail
  11. Center Park
  12. Perinton Park
  13. Potter Park
  14. Rochester, Syracuse and Eastern Trail
  15. Spring Lake Park
  16. Town Hall / Perinton Community Center
  17. Townwide Bike Route
  18. White Brook Nature Area

This Week in Links

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Victor Hiking Trails
Local Victor Hiking Organization
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NY-NJ Trail Conference Catskill Trails map
2010 Catskill maps now available!
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Great Eastern Trail
Great little writeup of someones hike along the Great Eastern Trail (11.4 miles starting near South Bradford NY)
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Bears are out in the Finger Lakes region
Tips from the Finger Lakes DEC on how to minimize problems with Bears as they leave their dens this time of year.
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The Top 10 Hiking Trails Around the World
List of the top 10 hiking trails to shoot for in your training
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Suggested Hikes For Mud Season
Great hikes in the Adirondack region for the spring muddy season.
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The Crescent Trail

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

The Crescent Trail is the longest trail in Perinton (with maybe an exception for the canal trail). It stretches for approximately 35 miles from one end of Perinton to the other. Chances are if you’re hiking in the Fairport / Perinton area you’re on a section of the Crescent trail or one of the connected loops.

You should never head out on the trail without a map. Perinton provides a great trailmap for the Crescent Trail which you can print yourself or just carry on your digital device. Here are the two sections available:

http://www.perinton.org/Departments/RandP/hikingctha/

Where We Are

~ randyaa ~ 2 Comments

If you’re reading this on our website you might have noticed something new!

We’ve temporarily added a map to the top of the site courtesy of Instamapper which allows us to share with everyone where we are at the moment.  We thought it might be neat for family and friends to see our progress.

Right now it doesn’t show anything, (intentionally) but starting at the airport tomorrow morning we’ll check in once a day or so (where we have cellphone reception).  This should give everyone a good idea on what we’re doing and where.

And for those who don’t already know, the trip we’re talking about this time is our great Pacific Northwest Adventure.  We fly out tomorrow morning bright and early, and we won’t be back for 3 weeks!

Don’t worry (I know you were…) we’ll be updating from the road.

The next time we talk, we’ll be on (or near) the west coast!

Till then… Adieu

Two Discoveries

~ randyaa ~ 2 Comments

turning-point-boardwalkI made two discoveries today.  Well really, my friend Mike made one discovery yesterday (which I realized today) and I made another one today.  I’m going to use my discovery today to illustrate Mike’s from Yesterday.  If you’re less inclined to a little geekery skip to the map below.

GPS Tracking isn’t all that new, there are many devices to do this, and every mobile GPS unit that I know has the ability.  The iPhone doesn’t, or at least not natively.  Mike and I were exploring an area of Rochester today which I’d never heard of or seen before today.  Because of this I thought it would be neat to track where we were and how far we went etc.  Also because I tend to take a lot of photos I figured I could use the GPS tracking information to geo-tag my pictures.

My criteria for GPS tracking was that it could use my iPhone, that it was free, and that it could track my coordinates over time.  This isn’t a lot, I know, I was trying to be flexible.  I did a little searching in the iTunes app store and came up with InstaMapper.

InstaMapper fit the bill perfectly.  Not only is instamapper free, but it pushes the data direct to a website (which requiers an account that is also free) allowing you to export it in any format you wish.  It also interfaces directly with Google Maps letting you see all your waypoint data on a very nice Google Maps interface.

Overall I’m impressed.  My only complaint is that the the waypoint data is not cached locally to send later if you don’t have a connection.  While this isn’t a problem around Rochester, this will be a problem if I were to try to use this application in a more rural area such as the Adirondacks.  Of course, there is another downfall to the iPhone app version, and that is the app has to be running in the foreground for your waypoints to get tracked.  This is a limitation of the iPhone however; and in my opinion can’t detract from the value of the application itself.  The app is available for iPhone, Blackberry, Android & Motorola iDEN(whatever that is) at this point.

The following is the GPS waypoint map created and embedded using InstaMapper’s tools of our trek today.

GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com

http://www.instamapper.com/trk?key=17792608895854370827&width=500&height=350&type=roadmap

This is all in a park called Turning Point Park.  It’s quite nice and apparently they’ve spent a large chunk of change in the past few years putting in the 4,000ft boardwalk.  I’m awefully happy with whoever spent all the effort to push for the new boardwalk, it made the entire experience vary enjoyable and the park would be all but useless without it.

I will be visiting again.