Oneida County, NY

Oneida County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 234,878. The county seat is Utica. The name is in honor of the Oneida, an Iroquoian tribe that lives in the region.

Oneida County is in the central portion of New York State, east of Syracuse, and west of Albany. Oneida Lake is on the northwestern corner of the county, and the Adirondack Park is on the northeast. Part of the Tug Hill Plateau is in the northern part of the county. Interestingly, Oneida County’s highest point does not lie on either the plateau nor in the Adirondack Park, but in the county’s southern extremity. The peak’s name is Tassel Hill. It is located slightly southeast of Hardscrabble Road (Tassel Hill Road), between the villages of Waterville and Cassville.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneida_County,_New_York

Utica – Rome Land Use

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South of Utica you will find many acres of cultivated land, while north of the city there is some cultivated acres, but much of the land is of poorer quality and used for timber production, grazing, and hay production. Even further north you get into the foothills of the Adirondack Park and it's highly forested. To the west of Rome, you can see the marshy lands along the Wood Creek and the Barge Canal, along with the confers of the Rome Sand Plains, a pine barriens.

Utica – Rome Expressway Upgrades

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In the early 2000s, the last section of the Utica - Rome Expressway (NY 49) was upgraded to full limited access, by paralleling the NY Thruway and bypassing Marcy.

LEFT - Circa 1995
RIGHT - Circa 2020

Mountain Bike Trail from Janis Road to Tassell Hill

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While many people hike up to Tassell Hill via Hardscrable Road from the north, another option is to hike from Upper White Road / Janis Street via the Mountain Bike Trail. This is a nice hike, with gradual ascents, though the bike trail has a lot of switch backs but it beats trying to climb over all the downed trees over the very rutted old woods road.