Trip 17 started Friday: Finger Lakes Bed and Breakfast-Based Day Hikes with trip leader Adrianna. The team will hike 1-3 miles per day in beautiful upstate New York. There is no llama support for this trip.
Day 1
Support hiker Barney reported for the Trip 17 team:
“What are the hallmarks of high-end adventure travel? Stunning location, four-star lodging, gourmet food, local guides to take care of all needs, but most of all, highly trained local naturalists that give you an insider’s view, making any guidebook you purchased seem like a first-grade primer. That’s why you pay the big bucks. PasstoPass runs on a shoe-string budget; has a nearly all-volunteer staff; and the equipment or services for its treks are largely donated or highly discounted. So how is it that this PasstoPass trip finds me in a stately, high-ceilinged banquet room, eating breakfast on fancy china, in an 1814 colonial mansion? To my right, the 15-foot-tall windows show a long, tree-lined drive, and to my left, the view is of a picture-perfect lake. We are in the heart of New York’s Finger Lakes.
“Forgive me if this is a day late, written over breakfast instead of last night. But the first day of our trek was a treat money can’t buy. This is a lodge-based trek. If our lodging at the Fontainebleau Inn seems nice enough for a wedding venue, that’s because it is. And we have it all to ourselves. If our trek leader Adrianna seems like she’s been a naturalist guide for decades, that’s because she has. This is Andriana’s home territory. She chose the three Finger Lakes day hikes for us.
“Our first day’s hike began just off Texas Hollow Road, a half hour outside of Ithaca, on the aptly named Finger Lakes Trail. We were 12: Adrianna; locals Kindra, Mary, Andy, and Scott; and those of us who had come from afar: Maiju and Dave, Robin and Jay, Rose, and my wife, Sandy, and me. Seven with Parkinson’s. In addition to her daypack, Adrianna carried a well-worn naturalist’s pouch hung from one shoulder in front. We stopped every 15 minutes or so. The history of the land, the trees – Adrianna knew it all, and shared it with us. She actually owns a plot of land nearby where she is building a small, octagonal cabin.
“At our hike’s end, she showed us a secret spring with water so pure that folks will drive for miles to fill up on its water. And, she gave us a tour of the cabin she’s building with her own hands.
“Though this part is out of order, I have to mention that Adrianna actually picked Sandy and me up at the airport, and not only that, she loaned us a car for the weekend. I heard from others on the trek how Adrianna had gone out of her way for them, too. Try to top Overseas Adventure Travel, Backroads or Wilderness Travel.
“Our evening dinner proved an equal to our surroundings. It was potluck, but everyone outdid themselves. And then, with dinner settling in our stomachs, we had what’s really one of the highlights of any PasstoPass trip – casual, frank, talk about Parkinson’s. What is it like for you? What works? What doesn’t. Do you get so little time from your doctor, too? Rose launched a question around the table: How many times a year do you see your neurologist? The common answer was two or three. One said she only saw her neurologist every nine months. One woman described the fight it took to be seen four times a year.
“One thing struck me as I listened. I’ve been alongside Sandy for the 11 years since she was diagnosed. Just two days ago, I learned a good friend’s cancer had come back. He described how this phalanx – this team of doctors, specialists, and hospital staff – formed around him. You get cancer and that’s what forms around you: A team. Your hope is someday to ring that bell: Cured of cancer. What do you get when you get Parkinson’s? A dribble and drab of a doctor’s time. Often a doctor not well trained on Parkinson’s. There’s no bell to be rung.
“Last night as everyone shared, I thought to myself: For one night, for one weekend, we do get our team. A team every Parkinson’s patient should have and deserves. Thank you, PasstoPass.”
Day 2
Barney continued:
“Saturday: I woke to chiding this morning – from no less than PasstoPass founder Bill Meyer. Where’s yesterday’s trip report? So today I begin mid-afternoon, four hours before the deadline. All of which is good because we are still basking in the glory of this morning. I’ll confess, I wasn’t expecting much beyond a second fall hike with a few waterfalls thrown in, with local color provided by the trees, and Adrianna’s naturalist knowledge. Adrianna said there would be a lot of uphill, and to prove that fact there were the aptly named lower and upper parking lots where we would begin and end.
“We increased by one to 13 today; Mary’s daughter Tai joined us. Mary and Tai arrived and started out early, relying on us to catch up. When we eventually did, they told us they knew they’d miss out on Adrianna’s naturalist talks, so instead they made up their own nature facts. Such as: Did you know that when Gingko tree leaves hit the ground they make the sound ‘ging-ko?’ No, I surely did not.
“More surprises came out of Adrianna’s naturalist’s pouch. Maps of the earth 400 million years ago, when right here was under an ancient warm sea, and there were trilobites. And the next thing from her pouch was a rock with a trilobite fossil. She told us about lichen, and recited a rhyme about ‘Freddy the fungus’ and ‘Alice the algae,’ and how the two took a lichen to each other.
“But none of this prepared us for the last half mile of Enfield Glen in Robert H. Treman State Park. I’d never heard of it before, but the gorge has sheer sides and the trail carved into and along those sides was impressive, with Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Depression-era rock work – stone bridges and staircase steps. Then there was 115-foot Lucifer Falls. All this resulted in us stopping again and again for photos. Each time we rounded another bend, as more of the gorge opened up, Maiju’s husband, Dave, said, ‘Another cathedral.’
“I absolutely must leave you with a link to the song about Freddy and Alice: The Strangely Popular Lichen Song by Alan Atkisson.”