“TRAVEL IN LOCAL SPACES”
“Bowman Lake State Park”

by Jessica Kuzmier

     I've never thru-hiked a long trail in my life. When I lived on Long Island, there was the Long Island Greenbelt Trail, which ran about seventeen miles in length from the North Shore to the South Shore. I have hiked the entire thing, but only in piecemeal. I've set foot on the great Appalachian Trail as well, but only a segment in Bear Mountain State Park in New York. Mt. Katahdin is just a pipe dream at this point. So are any of these other long trails that require you to put all your possessions in storage because you'll be gone for six months minimum. Segments are enough at this point, thank you. Then I can go stuff my face in some family-stytle restaurant to compensate for the caloric deficit and then come home to my own bed. Not that I think that anyone who goes the whole way is crazy. I know a couple of people who hiked the Appalachian or have done things like walk fifty mile hikes without stopping, and I'm glad they've gotten something from it. At this point, though, as far as my life is concerned, I'm too attached to creature comforts to really consider the prospect of thru-hiking, though it does sound like a really wild adventure.



     So, when I got to Bowman Lake State Park in Chenango County, New York, I was in for an interesting surprise. The thing that I most expected to see was a beach, because my trusty atlas proudly proclaimed that it was a swimming area. It also said that nature and bicycle trails were involved, but I didn't think much of it because a lot of the parks have self-contained trails that are endemic to the park. What I didn't know was the extent of those trails. So when my spouse and I got our picnic lunch together and headed for the beach, and I saw the sign that said that Bainbridge was 38 miles away and Oquaga State was 49 miles away, I just thought it was a quaint decoration for tourists. It probably should have been a clue that this was a section of a larger trail, but logic isn't the top characteristic of someone who is starving, which would describe me at the time. We saw trailheads for a walking path along the perimeter of the beach as we set our lunch out, and thought maybe later on we'd take a walk.

     The beach itself was pretty nice and spacious. We were the only people on the beach. There was a concession stand that was still hibernating, dressed up in red, white and blue decorations for the Memorial Day festivities three weeks away. It was a great day for a private picnic; the only other vehicle was in the next parking lot over, in a section designated for skiing. However, even though it was early May, and it was a clear blue sky day, the weather was brisk and the winds were sharp, especially by the water. So lunch was consumed quickly, and to warm up, my spouse and I decided to take a drive around the park to see what was around before doing any walking. An off-road path led to rows and rows of primitive campsites hidden in the woods, which were for the time being, unoccupied. That would certainly change in the space of a month. But the campsites were about the extent of what was featured on the road. We headed back to the original parking lot to walk the trail we'd seen by the beach.



     The trail was pretty easy to find, seeing that it was marked by white blazes. It started off by taking us past the unopened concession stand and beach where we had our lunch. The terrain was still pretty easy, even though the path itself seemed to be in the strangest angles along the way, as if to prove itself as a worthy hiking trail. I saw no reason not to walk parallel to it where the walking was more level, and pick it up as I went along to keep track of it. To the dismay of most die-hard white blazers on the Appalachian, I have to admit I'd be a blue-blazer. To anyone who is not ensconced in trail jargon, this color code simply has to do with the type of trails on the Appalachian. A white blazer is a person who stays on the designated trail, marked by white blazes. This hiker would have stayed on the funny angles on the path I took because that's how the trail is marked. The blue blazes on the Appalachian are side trails. That would be me on the parallel path. My ankles thanked me kindly for not being a die-hard white blazer.

     Our path left the beach area and headed towards a more wooded area, going along a route that resembled a long-dried out creek with a lot of stones to navigate. The trail directions informed us that the fire tower was just over two miles away and reminded us about the mileage to Bainbridge. It was at this close pedestrian proximity that I noticed that the trail was the "Finger Lakes Trail", which I found to be interesting because Chenango County is nowhere near any Finger Lake; the closest thing to it is Otisco Lake in Onondaga County, which had to be at least forty miles northwest from where we were. That was when it finally dawned on my temporarily topographically challenged mind that perhaps we were walking on a major trail artery.

     I must confess that trail buff that I am, I had never heard of the Finger Lakes Trail, and yet here it was only hours away from where I lived. It is usually an ironic fact that one may have traveled far away and yet be unfamiliar with stuff in his own back yard. My ignorance of the Finger Lakes Trail seemed to be a great example of this. And as I walked, I still only had a hunch that it was a major trail. Maybe it was just a fancy name for a local park, though I seriously doubted it. The trip was thus conducted in such a way that I was unsure of where the heck this thing would lead me to.

     The portion of the trail that my spouse, dog and I walked on was fairly mild, though it wasn't terribly flat. It was on a constant grade going up and down, going through woods and streams and further away from civilization. Small creeks yielded baby waterfalls that gave it a pleasant harmony through out the walk. Our goal was to reach the fire tower that was promoted on the initial directive sign; seeing that it was two miles away, we figured we could get there in under forty-five minutes. But we misjudged the elevation, and between that and photo stops, half an hour later we had still about a mile to go. And it was starting to warm up quickly in midday style. So, we decided that at the next big hill up, we'd turn around. That final hill showed up very soon afterwards, which was not much of a surprise seeing how many hills we'd encountered so far. The fire tower could wait for another time.



     As is typical with these kinds of things, coming back was a lot quicker than going in. It seems once you've navigated a certain territory even a single time, your brain can plot a fairly subconscious course in reverse that seems to shorten the time. It seemed like we were heading more downhill on the way back. The gradation had been subtle enough on the way in that it hadn't seemed really obviously uphill, unless a bigger hump showed up in our path. But for some reason, the downhill way seemed really pronounced. It only took us twenty-five minutes to travel a route that took forty minutes on the way in.

     Once I was back in the vehicle and we were on our way home, I grabbed my atlas and looked up the section called "Hiking" to see if it said anything about the Finger Lakes Trail. Sure enough, it did. According to the map, it starts in Allegany State Park, which is located in Cattaraugus County. It heads east for 350 miles to the Catskill Forest, encompassing the town of Bainbridge, Bowman Lake State Park, and Oquaga Creek State Park along the way. Just like we had accidentally stumbled upon a portion of the Appalachian Trail in Bear Mountain Park, we'd found a new trail during a day trip to the beach. Perhaps one day we'd hike more of it, but for now, it was just nice to make the discovery and then go home.