On a Sunday after church Jessica, Mark, and I set off to do 1/2 of the length of Wayne County, New York on skis. Our route of travel was west to east along the Erie Canal Heritage Trail. Dad dropped us off by van slightly further west of the county line than originally intended and we rolled with it.
The starting point was the Lyndon Road bridge, just west of Perinton and on the outskirts of Fairport. We departed at 3:15 pm, more or less cruising without break until we had covered about 10 miles and reached Aqueduct Park in Palmyra, NY. Jess, Mark, and I gnawed through our half-frozen Power Bars there under the awesomely reconstructed Aldrich Change Bridge.
Our small group continued eastward from there, the sky turning dark. I pulled two headlamps from my Camelbak Snoblast daypack and relinquished them to Mark and Jess as I brought up the rear. We did not see any signage at the next bridge in Palmyra and crossed the road, losing the trail briefly after passing by a small roadside cafe. Momentarily Mark sighted the continuation of the trail on the opposite side and we skied across the iced-over Erie Canal to return to the north bank.
We passed over the newly-built bridges at Swift's Landing County Park (over Ganargua Creek) and continued on over the recently completed canalpath to Newark. The last 5 miles we skied in a downpouring of heavy wet snow, which caused some frustrating sticky-ski problems for me. After finally reaching the back parking lot of the Quality Inn in Newark, all three of us collapsed on a snow pile for a group photo. It was almost 10 pm. What a marathon ski! After Dad picked us back up by van, we went to Tommy's bar on the north side of town for delicious burgers and a pitcher of Beck's Dark.
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