2023-07-14 42 -78

Location

In Majors Park in East Aurora

Participants

Pedalpusher
Myka the dog

Expedition

Looking at the overhead view, this appeared reachable and as a bonus, was in a public park right next to the parking lot. I thought this might be a good opportunity for an adventure with Myka and explore another new park with a hiking trail. I couldn't tell how long the trail was from the OSM view, but figured I could walk around for an hour after getting to the hash.

After work, I got Myka ready and we headed out, following my phone GPS to the park. Getting to the hash road, I found the parking area, but saw they have been working on it and there was a construction vehicle parked to the side. Everything seemed to be open and the ground was level so I parked next to the other car in the lot. First things first, I headed to the hash but I must not have looked at the map that hard because I thought it was at the edge of the large mowed area of the trail, but it ended up being a couple meters into the brush. I managed to find an opening and was able to avoid the most of the prickers and got a good enough reading on the HashDroid app before taking some pictures of the area.

Without Simon, Myka tends to stay close and hang back a bit because she doesn't know where to go and it's easier to keep an eye on me. I figured that would actually work out for when we run into the occupants of the other car. I set my alarm for 30 minutes so if we didn't get to the end of a trail, we would know when to turn around. The meadow area was kind of boring as it was a massively wide mowed area, but once we got to the woods, it was more to my liking. I could kind of see the creek going by at that point, but it was very thick to get to it with a bit of a steep slope as well so we just kept going on the trail. The woods here were pretty open and off the trail, I saw a campfire area so I investigated. It was a nice little outlook over the creek bed on the other side of the ridge from the main creek.

Suddenly, the trail made a quick turn and ended up in a dried creek bed with steep sides about waist high. Myka was able to drop down and get a drink from a pool that hadn't disappeared yet, but with no clear path beyond this point, we turned around. I was a little disappointed we didn't make it to the main creek, but thought I might be able to access it another way. I still had about 15 minutes on the clock so I wasn't worried about running out of time, but thought this was a lot smaller park than it looked if that was the extent of the trails.

On the way out and back in the meadow, there's an 'island' of tall grass where the trail splits and rejoins itself so I figured I would walk around the other way from how I went getting to the woods which is where I discovered another section of trail heading back into the woods. With time, I figured I could explore this too and was able to also find the end of this trail at the top of a ridge overlooking a marshy area where again I didn't really have a defined path to follow. It worked out perfectly anyway because at this point, we had just a few minutes before we had to turn around. On the way back, I found another deflated mylar balloon in the woods so I grabbed that to get it out of Nature.

While this may not be a park I revisit, it was fun exploring the area. I never actually ran into anyone, so I have no idea where the owner of the car went, but it was still there when I got back. I was also able to throw out the balloon as they had a dog waste station at the trailhead so I could complete the GeoTrash achievement on the spot.

Photos

Walking by the trailhead to the hash, it's a super wide mowed area for the trail here.
Made it!
Myka sitting nicely at the hash.
View SE from the hash back toward the parking lot.
View SW toward the road. The NW view didn't save correctly on the site so imagine this view but a different direction :P.
View NE from the hash.
Standard Stupid Grin.
We found this trail through the woods after the meadow section.
A little ways into the woods, a view of the main creek from the ridge.
There were some minor trails heading toward the adjacent properties so I'm not surprised to find someone made themselves more comfortable in this nice spot.
Stupid mylar balloons in the woods...
...now where it should have been in the first place.