Lake Country is Nature’s Health Club

By Sue Freeman

It’s hard to stay indoors when you visit the Lake Country. The scenery beckons you outdoors and lures you into its magical net. What a way to be enveloped – in the spell of lush treed slopes, glimmering lakes, sparkling waterfalls, and colorful creatures. It’s natures perfect health club and it’s yours to enjoy – loaded with trails that lead to fun adventures.

 You can’t resist the spell. You’ll be drawn outdoors to use the trails to walk your dog, take a hike, go for a bike ride, take a run, go on a firefly safari, wander on a quest to find waterfalls, or splash up a creek bed. Who needs a health club membership when there’s so much to do?

The gem of trails in Lake Country is Ontario Pathways Trail. This, 20-mile-long trail forms a big V shape as it heads southeast from Canandaigua to Stanley, then turns to head northeast to Phelps. It’s the old Canandaigua Corning Line that was converted to a public rail-trail by a dedicated group of volunteers. The trail is flat and covered in hard-packed dirt or mowed grass. It’s not unusual to see families pushing a stroller, older folks out for a walk or people of all ages riding bikes. This trail wanders through farmland, often covered by a canopy of trees. At the northern end, near Phelps you’ll walk or bike past Double Drop Falls on Flint Creek. These waterfalls are 10 and 5-feet high respectively. Imagine kayakers running these waters in spring flood. They actually do it.

Once you’ve stretched your legs on Ontario Pathways Trail, get your heart pounding with a climb up the trails in Onanda Park on the east side of Canandaigua Lake. Take a 1.2-mile round trip hike up the hillside and you’ll be rewarded with overlooks to the waterfalls in Barnes Creek as well as a birds-eye view of Canandaigua Lake. See if you can find all three waterfalls. They range from 8 to 50 feet high.

Now, go to the other side of Canandaigua Lake and climb Bare Hill. As the name implies, this is a bare, grass-covered hill, with another panoramic view of Canandaigua Lake. Besides being gorgeous, this spot is heaped in history. This is where the Genundowa Festival of Lights originated. Genundowa was the name of a Seneca village near Bare Hill. Each year in early September, the Seneca Elders and the tribes Keepers would light a large fire on top of Bare Hill as part of the Seneca Autumn Ceremony of Thanksgiving for a successful harvest. This fire was followed by smaller fires along the lake, resulting in a ring of light as a gesture of Indian unity. This ring-of-fire ceremony continues each fall.

  
Let’s take a breather and go for an easy walk with a definite objective. This time we’re looking for bluebirds on the Mary Frances Bluebird Haven Trail in Victor. Or, go on a country drive to find waterfalls. Find the remains of an old mill site and see the still-tumbling waters in Shortsville where Canandaigua Outlet forms a 10-foot high waterfall. In the center of Phelps, Flint Creek falls in two tiers of 11 and 4 feet respectively to create Old Mill Falls. 

You’re not done yet. The steep hills that surround Naples valley at the south end of Canandaigua Lake produce streams filled with intriguing waterfalls. Four streams run into the Naples valley and each are loaded with waterfalls. The best known is Conklin Gully, also called Parish Glen. Hiking the steep rim trail, you get to peer across the gorge to see 120-foot high Angel Falls. But hidden in the recesses of the gully are other waterfalls ranging from 1 to 33 feet high. To see them you must get your feet wet and walk up the creek bed. Creek walking in Conklin Gully is challenging. A much easier, family-oriented creek walk can be found across Route 21 in Grimes Glen. The 1.2-mile round trip creek walk is through cold water, but the walk is easy in summer and you’ll find two large waterfalls and many smaller ones. Tannery Creek and Clark Gully are the other two creek walking streams in Naples.

If you’re looking for a challenge, you’ll find it here in nature’s health club also. Mountain bikers can try the rugged dirt trails at Stid Hill. Backpackers can hike 54 miles on the Bristol Hills Branch of the Finger Lakes Trail starting at Ontario County Park.

We’ve only scratched the surface. There’s the Auburn Trail, Ganondagan Trails,    Hi Tor, Middlesex Valley Rail Trail, Seneca Trail and others. Come for a visit – we’d be glad to share them all with you.

  Sue Freeman is the author of 10 guidebooks to outdoors fun in Central and Western New York, including 200 Waterfalls, Take A Hike, Take Your Bike and Cobblestone Quest (www.footprintpress.com, 800-431-1579).