Training Log Archive: Funderstormin

Grand River / Grand Valley trail run. Every morning when my alarm goes off to run before work, I think, do I really want to do this? But then when I get out there I am so glad I didn't stay in bed! Grand Valley trail singletrack along the river is getting really overgrown and I did a lot of burr dodging and pulling slugs off my arms. I'd take slugs over ticks though!

C • Earl 2

Checked out a new hot yoga class last night as the one I love doing on Mondays wasn't running because of the holiday. My enjoyment of a yoga class is at least 50% dependent on who is teaching it, and this girl just didn't really do it for me. My back was thanking me for the stretching though!

Wanted to hit the road pretty early and while there was another trail called "Beehunter" that I was very intrigued about seeing, I decided it would be a lovely morning for a paddle around the now very quiet Red House Lake, since it wasn't an American holiday and the park was nearly empty. Paddled once around the lake and little islands, saw a big ass turtle, and found a little channel that I'm sure they didn't think anyone would try to take their paddleboards down.

Since I can't exactly fit my kayak in or on top of Earl without a lot of mess or hassle, I think he'd like an inflatable SUP instead. :-D

This was a very fun area to explore only a few hours from home. I felt like I got the gist of what the trails were like, but would be interested in going back in the winter for a x-country ski adventure. There were some very cool and inexpensive cabin rentals right across from the Art Roscoe X-Country trails.

C • Ski Adventure 6

Earl and I left Willow Bay and did a bit of driving around before heading back into the NY side of Allegany to check out a couple of different trails. First up was Bear Caves / Mt. Seneca that was a point-to-point trail with some cool rock formations. I was looking forward to seeing the "summit" but realized that after I'd been going down for some time that I'd missed it, oops! The trail sign had said 4 miles but I assumed that was one-way and was surprised to come out to the end as early as I did. The trail was lovely but I hate out and backs so I just rambled back to the van along the road.

After the Bear Caves trail we headed over to the Red House area of the park where I was planning to camp for the night. They had SUP rentals which I thought would be a fun way to mix it up for the afternoon but as I was filling out the rental form, we heard thunder and they said they couldn't (understandably) rent me a boat for at least half an hour after the thunder had stopped. There was another trail I wanted to check out that went up and over a hill so decided to do that in the pouring rain instead. I did have a brief moment of "is this the best idea?" as I set out in the rain but the trail was short and sheltered. Took a beer and some nuts in my pack to enjoy at the "summit" but it was too wet to eat the nuts. The Ellicotville Session IPA went down well though. :-)

Rain kept up the entire time but it was really fun. I had my poles with me for extra traction and it was neat to know I was the only crazy one out there at the time!

After hike #2, I drove around to choose a campsite and decided NOT to choose the one beside the guy who had a big sign out front of his proclaiming "God didn't save us, Sam Colt did." And then it said something else about guns being awesome. I can't make this up! Gotta love 'murica!

Saturday morning at Tracy Ridge it was pouring rain, so I decided to hang out in Earl a bit longer and enjoy a good book to see if it let off. It did eventually, but not until nearly lunch time.

I'd planned a longer run / hike on the trails in the Tracy Ridge Recreation Area which included a portion of the North Country Trail. The area is well signed with lots of length / route options. Ran for the first hour or so but my Achilles was giving me grief so I settled for hiking the rest instead.

It was lovely and green and humid in the woods, but the scenery was pretty unchanging and the humidity brought out the FDFs, so I was happy enough to have gotten about 20km or so in and head back to Earl in time to head to our campsite for the night down at the bottom of the ridge at a place called Willow Bay. It was much less wilderness-y and family-oriented than Tracy Ridge but I did enjoy the hot shower and had a cool site backing onto a babbling creek!

Earl and I headed down to the Allegheny / Allegany region (why do they spell it differently?) for the long weekend. We both get very excited about the prospect of unexplored trails! We were staying on the PA side for the first two nights but stopped in the NY part of the park on our way to down to check out the Black Snake Mountain (mountain is a bit of an exaggeration) trail as it crossed the NY/PY border and I thought that it would be cool to see the marker!

It was raining as I started and I was the only person on the trail, which made my NY/PA border selfies much less awkward.

Ran a bit, hiked a bit, but am too lazy to try to figure out how much of each. In my Ambit, I call it "rambling".

A fun start to the trip! When we were done we headed over to the Tracy Ridge Recreation Area on the PA side for the night.