Sugar Hill State Forest is located about 7 miles west of Watkins Glen, near the hamlets of Tyrone and Bradford, in the Allegheny Plateau. It covers approximately 9,085 acres in the towns of Orange, Tyrone, and Reading in Schuyler County.
Among its many attractions is the Six Nations Trail System, approximately 35 miles long. A portion of the trail system is located on Goundry Hill State Forest. It is open for horse use in the summer months, and snowmobile use when there is sufficient snow cover. Foot travel is encouraged all year round.
The main trail head for the system is the Sugar Hill Fire Tower and Recreation Area located near the north end of the Sugar Hill State Forest, off of Tower Hill Rd. At that location you will find parking, water, flush toilets, the fire tower, rangers cabin, picnic area and pavilion, 16 horse stalls, rec building, kiosks with sign-in sheets, an accessible horse mounting ramp, two radio towers, a couple of archery targets and field area for camping.
Vacation ends this evening. And so does pretty much everything that changed with the pandemic. I will drive east through Tompkins, Chenango and Otsego Counties, past the dairies and farms, the homesteads and rural homes where people are scraping by a rural lifestyle one shovel of manure at a time. Not rushing home, I’ll do the laundromat after work tomorrow. It’s good to get away for a while, some place far from Albany.
I am planning on working downtown four days a week – Monday through Thursday, with Friday being the only remote work day and if I need a computer to do my work for more than a couple hours a day I might go in even then. After Labor Day it’s back in the office just like it was before, no more phoning and emailing it in from the Adirondacks or Green Mountains. Vacation will be just that, a work free session, none of this work eight hours from camp.
Starting this week, August the Bethlehem library is open it’s full schedule including Friday nights and no mask is required. You can sit an work anywhere there for getting on the internet. I’ll probably be doing that more often without the Hotspot or unlimited mobile data at home. I like my little walk down to the library after work for the internet.
The main thing left to change back is the bus service. I keep waiting to see when they bring back the express service, the 719 bus. Also, I’m hoping the local will be running every fifteen minutes like it used to before the pandemic. That will make communing a lot easier for me and close one of the last gaps since the pandemic. I’m not crazy about wearing my muzzle on the bus or elevators but even with the Delta virus strain I can’t imagine it goes on forever.
Even though I’ve been trying to take my vacation easy, trying to sleep in, taking mornings easy, camping in one campsite most of the week, and keeping a laid back schedule, it always seems like after a week camping I am feeling so exhausted.
Maybe it’s the time in the sun or the alcohol. Maybe it’s because its more work to camp than to sit at home where I have running water and a shower. Maybe it’s the moving gear between the cab and cap of the truck – and securing the campsite before I leave, but it’s still so tiring. Seems like a job every day.
A lot of people I know when they do vacation, they eat out every meal and stay in a motel room. But I don’t know, that sure feels a lot like work travel. I don’t want to rely on strangers, I don’t want to stay in some weird place when I do that enough for work. Staying in my truck or in my tent, just feels like I’m in a more comfortable place that some random motel room.
It seems like so much of the green living movement these days is about buying shit to be sustainable. Got to have the right kind of plastic for the burn barrel or landfill I guess, as your buying to be sustainable. It’s stupid. If you care about the environment buy less shit and get it second hand if you absolutely need it. But remember where it’s going shortly. Common sense can save you a lot of money and help the environment much more than making some kind of green fashion statement.
Night before dawn is 5 hours and 26 minutes, Dawn starts at 5:26 am and runs for 31 minutes, Sunrise is at 5:58 am which is 6 hours and 1 minutes before noon, High noon, the transit of the sun, is at 1:14 pm, From twelve noon to the sunset at 8:29 pm is 8 hours and 29 minutes, Dusk lasts for 28 minutes concluding at 9:01 pm, Leaving 2 hours and 58 minutes until midnight.
Today’s plan calls for heading over to Sugar Hill State Forest and hiking the Finger Lakes Trail through it. 🚶🏻 I used to camp ⛺ a fair amount at Sugar Hill but since I’ve discovered the National Forest it’s where I stay most of the time nowadays. If I remember right, part of the Finger Lakes Trail follows gorge creek and while it’s not as impressive as the Watkins Glen below there are some nice scenes. Plus lots of nice old dirt roads, probably muddy horse trails 🐴 and the fire tower. There is a lot I haven’t seen up there.
I thought about heading all up to Penn Yann but that’s a pretty good trip, although I have to say I did enjoy hiking the Kueka Outlet Trail last year but I’m seeing out new experiences this year, trying not to visit the same places over and over again to generate new memories. 🧠 Been trying to think of other places nearby to explore too that I haven’t been to before. Likewise, the Cayuta Valley Rail Trail is great but I dun it last year..
I might in the evening stop in at one of the local real redneck looking bars for a drink 🍻, just to see if I can meet some interesting people. Although the National Forest will certainly be hoping tomorrow if I want to walk around and meet some people. That said, my campsite is fairly isolated so I don’t expect to be bothering anyone with music 🎶.
Tomorrow I am leaning towards Taugahock State Park, 🏞 doing some kayaking 🛶 and swimming at the beach 🏖 in Cayuga Lake plus the essential hiking to the falls. I wonder if the rail trail up that way through Ithaca and Trumansburg is open – they were working on it a few years back I believe and thst would be really interesting.
I just wish I could figure out which trails I haven’t done locally, as it’s going to be nice weather for hiking the next few days and I’m looking for some unexpected beauty, looking down at farms and woods, and the lakes. 🖼 Placed that are new. I guess there is gorge trails in Ithaca but I’m not really interested about fighting Ithaca traffic and hiking in the city. Ithaca folk just ain’t my type. 👨🔬
