Memorial Day is the traditional kickoff for summer, so my family took the opportunity to visit one of the many New York State Parks we plan to hit over the course of the season.
Today’s destination was Clark Reservation State Park located in Jamesville, a suburb of Syracuse. The park’s webpage describes the place as “a geologic wonder of the last ice age and a botanist’s paradise.” I’m neither a geologist nor a botanist, but I was very taken with the terrain. The park is filled with formations created by glacial ice. It’s a rugged tableau softened by shady woodland.
Our agenda for the day’s outing included the usual hiking and nature photography, as well as a holiday picnic lunch and some geocaching. Here are some pics from the day’s adventure…
Glacier Lake is the centerpiece of the park. This basin is surrounded by steep limestone cliffs.Descending one of several flights of stairs down said steep limestone cliffs. This is one of the better sections of stairs, in that it actually has some handrails. Even without handrails, getting down to the bottom wasn’t too bad. Climbing back up was a bit more of an ordeal.Did I mention that the limestone cliffs were steep?Faust? I had some misgivings about heading down a trail with a name that evokes pacts with Satan, but we forged ahead anyway.The Faust Trail turned out to be lovely. While I was on it, nobody tried to bargain for my soul, which is always a relief. In my mind’s eye, the backdrop for pretty much every scene in James Fennimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales looks exactly like this.I was game for the Mephistopheles trail, but I wasn’t about to wade through this one. If for no other reason, it reminded me too much of the 1981 film Southern Comfort.Underwater quicksand? Sounds terrifying. I was a little skeptical at first, but who am I to argue with a handwritten warning scrawled on cardboard?One of several geocaches hidden at the park. These army-surplus ammunition boxes contain a stamp to prove that you found it.A more subtle cache container.We let the youngest, most agile member of our party go after the cache that was hidden in a rough off-trail area.The day’s lunch. Jen is very proud of the new oh-so-twee picnic basket she bought for these excursions.A bonus of Clark Reservation is that it’s right down the road from a Gannon’s — a Syracuse institution that many consider to be the best ice cream stand in Central New York. All the calories I burned on the hike were quickly restored by a pineapple milkshake.
Researcher. Marketer. Teacher. Father of adult children and dogs. 20th Century holdover. Central New York native. Long-suffering Buffalo Bills fan. History nerd. Traveler. Vintage advertising enthusiast. Hat wearer.
a.k.a. V.J. 
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