In the campgrounds of the last few nights, the morning bird chorus was fairly homogenous; blue jays at Buttermilk Falls and crows at Keuka Lake. Here it was quite diverse, which makes sense given the place I was. Letchworth is called the Grand Canyon of the East, which is probably overstating the case, but it’s pretty comparable to Big Bend and some of the other features of the Southwest. Really quite impressive granitic river bends with autumnal trees. Lots of different birds dig it.
Awakened by the calls, I had breakfast and packed up. The weather was cloudy. I texted John, a fellow photo geek: “Select all images, Set white balance: Cloudy”. It was supposed to clear up, though.
I rolled by the ranger station to pay for my site (they thanked me for my honesty, no one would have known I’d been there), then headed up the road through the park.
Keeping with my tradition of avoiding the busiest trails in parks, I went off on a hike on the first trail I saw, which went down the canyon to the riverbed. It had some nice fall colors but never got to the kind of view I was hoping for.
Here’s a question: Why do we build and maintain roads like this in parks? Does a natural feature really need a lawn? Wouldn’t this be better with foliage up to the road, and a pathway through the trees? I think it must be a remnant of some early-automotive leisure drive history, combined with 19th century concepts of nature as something to be subjugated. Anyway, there wasn’t much traffic but the ride could have been nicer.
As I climbed through the park I passed a number of overlooks of the river and canyon. One of the advantages of a bike is you can easily pull over whenever it looks interesting.
The main river bend is lovely. If I had to choose just one day on this trip to get sun, this would be the one.
The bend is downstream from three serious waterfalls.
After hiking and shooting it was getting on to 2PM and I was definitely in need of lunch. I rolled by the Glen Iris Inn, Letchworth’s version of the Ahwanee; definitely too fancy for me at the moment. There was a snack bar but it was down a steep hill, so I passed it up and exited the park at Portageville, where the bowling alley’s dive bar was selling three tacos and a Yuengling for $6.17. Perfect.
From here I’d be heading directly west across the north-south glacial field. Straight lines create hills. There would be one or two I could roll over between each steep grinder. Overall it was slow going.
With the light, tree colors were emerging.
I started to feel irritation on the bottom of one of my feet; I’d never really experienced a blister on a bike before. I guess riding in wet shoes for three days can do that. It wasn’t quite blistered; I threw some skin glue and a patch on it.
While I was doing that, I checked the route plan. Because of the hills, the road I was on wasn’t super-fun, so I decided to re-route on the state highway, which would be about the same distance anyway. It turned out to be much faster, with less climbing, but highway shoulders are more hazardous for bike tires than rural roads; I got my first flat of the trip.
On the road I couldn’t put my hands on the tube they gave me, so I installed the 700×28 I’d brought for my own bike. The tire was quite loose on the rim and didn’t seat quite properly, resulting in a lumpy ride, but I decided to just deal with it for now as it was getting dark.
It had been getting cloudy again but an hour from sunset the sun peeked out, with prominent sundogs in the clouds on either side. The light slowed down my approach to camp, as I kept stopping for photos; it was my first real sunset in a while.
I rolled into the county park just past sunset. I again couldn’t find my reservation; I think I actually made one, but the county doesn’t have an online system so it was on the phone. I just went and found a site, probably on the wrong side of camp (it had electrical hookups, which my devices appreciated).
I was hoping I would be close enough to town to go grab dinner, but nothing nearby was open. I made the rest of my pasta, used up my prosciutto (pretty nice addition, drain the pasta, then add prosciutto and mozz and cook for a couple minutes more), crawled into my tent (no rain fly again) and crashed.