Local Winter Camping

 

  Instead of going to the Adirondacks for a winter camping trip, this year I stayed in Ithaca/Newfield/Enfield and spent a couple nights in the lean-to in Treman State Park.  I didn't take a picture of the lean-to so had to steal this picture from the internet.  When I was there, the hill behind it was snow-covered and there was more snow overall.  I got some good skiing in, but there was more ice-cover than snow.

 

  The view of downtown Ithaca and Cornell from the top of the hill above the lean-to.  Nice spot to watch the sun come up.

                                          

   The lean-to is located about 200 yards from Casella Waste Systems and the busiest highway in the county.  The back up beepers from the trucks, the drivers beeping their horns whenever they arrive and depart, and the dumpsters being dumped were all jolting at times.  Not the quietest camping experience I've ever had.  Fortunately, they were done by around 4 pm both evenings, and I got up and went exploring when they started up in the morning.  The wind mostly drowned out all but the jake brakes from semis on Rt. 13.

 

  The cabins would have provided a perfect spot to camp, even without access to get inside, but I was emphatically told I was not to set up on the porch of any of them.  I did go down to have breakfast and dinner a couple times to escape the horrendous noise at the lean-to.

 

  

  Though it's close enough to hike there via Buttermilk and the FLT in the summer, and I do that before heading to the mountains as a shakedown hike, I'd never even been to Treman in the winter. D'oh!  

  The banjo case was just the right height to set my stove on.  So versatile.  I got to play it when the afternoon sun filled the lean-to and my feet needed to cool off after several hours of skiing.

  A bunch of circumstances came together that made me decide to stay local instead of going to the Adirondacks.  I have been wanting to try out the skiing at Treman for many years and figured since we had enough snow at our house, and there was more than a foot in the hills east of town, there would be something in the middle there.  I was mistaken.  There was just barely enough to ski on.  The blue line of the top map is the extent of where I managed to get to over two days, about 15 miles.  I hoped to ski much of the Rim Trail, but it was too icy and was only accessible with spikes.  Outside of the gorge and with the exception of a couple hills, the Finger Lakes Trail isn't too hard to ski from the bottom of Lick Brook to Margaret's Woods Preserve.

  I had a visit from a bobcat right in front of the lean-to, but wasn't able to get a picture of it.  Lots of tracks though.  It doesn't seem to be bothered by the noise of the garbage trucks and lives in the area between the lean-to and the waste facility.  A couple bald eagles also flew right over and hung around the park for an evening and morning. 

  I thought I could ski down the park road to meet Gail when she picked me up.  I was mistaken.  Thankfully, I didn't end up like my friend who broke his leg when he camped here several years ago.