[itinerary | lodging]

The Genesee River Valley

The lemonade springs,
Where the bluebird sings,
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

For over 150 miles and over the past 12,000 years, the Genesee River has trickled from the mountains of northern Pennsylvania through Allegany, Wyoming, Livingston, and Monroe Counties, New York, eventually spilling into Lake Ontario. The Genesee River Valley feeds this side of New York State with its vast expanses of farmland, forests, lakes, and valleys. Home to the former Genesee Valley Canal, Genesee Valley now carries thousands of vehicles between Rochester and the Southern Tier every day via Interstate 390, the “Genesee Valley Expressway.” A crucial connector to Pittsburgh via the Allegheny River, the Genesee Valley Canal would later become the Genesee Valley Canal Railway and ultimately its current form, the Genesee Valley Greenway.

You’re no John Steinbeck, and this definitely isn’t Grapes of Wrath, but you try your best. You want to paint a picture of the beautiful land around you, but words will never do it justice. These places are characters, too. They live and breathe and have a history of complicated relationships. But if you want views, you need to pound the pavement– so to speak. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how about a photo-journal website?

Now 90 miles of converted rail gravel, the Genesee Valley Greenway stretches from Rochester to the Village of Cuba. When you visited Cuba for its famous cheese shop earlier this year, you checked in on another of New York’s famous lakes. You would later learn that Cuba Lake was once a reservoir built to regulate the Genesee Valley Canal on its final leg to Olean. That’s enough of a thread to connect it to your web of Finger Lakes lore. You are inspired to walk the Greenway, albeit a bit closer to home near the mouth of Letchworth State Park in the Village of Mount Morris.

High Banks Tavern

You’ll need your energy if you plan to hike. Thankfully, the Village offers another quaint Main Street setting with plenty of restaurants and shops open on a Saturday afternoon. You spot a pub with tables and chairs placed neatly on the sidewalk, currently unoccupied. You duck into High Banks Tavern and ask for menus before getting comfortable outside. The air is crisp, but the sun is still warm for October. Perfect weather for a beer and a bite.

The view from your sidewalk table

High Banks provides a nice assortment of standard American pub ware, including crisp tater tots as an alternative to French fries and a gooey and delicious homemade mac and cheese. You order the appropriately titled “Letchworth Burger” topped with bacon jam, a delightful combination of salty, sweet, and tangy. The service is prompt and polite, and it seems you’ve attracted a crowd to the Tavern simply by sitting outside: a motorcycle convoy pulls over, its rank and file ready to hit the bar, while a family with a very happy Labrador sets up camp at the table across the way. Mount Morris is warm and active and excited you came to visit.

Scenes from High Banks Tavern

With a full tank and a full stomach, you’re ready to hit the Greenway. Just a little way’s down Route 36, you find a pull-off ahead of the entrance to Letchworth State Park. Now that the busy season is over, you are delighted to find the parking area all to yourself. To your right, the trail branches in one direction — as Trail #20, or “Highbanks,” into the park — and another along the Greenway’s northern route, across from the Seneca Foods plant, in the direction of Geneseo. To the left, the trail crosses a metal bridge.

Bridge near the 33-mile trailhead

Genesee Greenway

The trailhead begins next to an old RG&E mill and dam — the Scottsville Branch’s 33rd mile — and likely the bridge you cross over the river was a former rail crossing of the Greenway’s predecessor. You glance up-stream to a scene of perfect tranquility: the Genesee rests still as it approaches the impending dam, a mirror reflecting the beginnings of steep cliffs cut by millions of years of ice melt, under a ruffled sky glinting in the setting sun. The remnants of a path winds parallel to the river, disappearing into the jungles of Letchworth State Park. You hear no cars. You hear no machinery, no conversations, no phones. You see tiny dots of fish nabbing insects on the water. You see a bird of prey hanging in mid-air, waiting for the most opportune moment. You see shades of green and yellow and orange. You are not very religious, but you recognize when you are staring at wonders of Creation.

The Maw of Letchworth

As you walk toward the far end of the bridge, you realize the world is closing in around you. The path narrows, and the trees silence the air. The path extends for an eternity, it seems; a one-point perspective painting of a tunnel to darkness. Like Bilbo Baggins at the edge of Mirkwood, you hesitate to cross the threshold for fear of what lies within. Will it be giant spiders or hungry trolls? You take each pensive step with caution as you squint through the trees. You see straight lines and squares, shades of brown and white. Some signs of civilization appear in the form of private backyards, and you understand the Greenway has brought you safely right back to the Village. It seems all roads lead to Mount Morris today.

Tunnel vision on the Greenway, Mount Morris, NY

Letchworth State Park

Not yet ready to return to civilization, you make an about-face on the Greenway and jog back to your car. The nearby Trail #20 is a little heavy for your experience, but you studied the park map and have another idea in mind. You drive through the park entrance with ease thanks to your Empire Pass and enjoy the glowing orange foliage of Letchworth’s winding Park Road. Trail #18, the Kisil Point Trailhead, is waiting for you deep in the woods.

Letchworth Trail #18 starts at a small pull-off next to a wooden bridge. You cross a dried-up creek bed over the bridge, following the purple trail markers. The woods are deafeningly silent, your footsteps muffled by the mottled leaf carpet. There is a peace here that cannot be achieved anywhere else. While the Lake frees your spirit amidst open waters and endless skies, the forest rolls you up in a gravity blanket and absorbs your soul. You are lost in pure Western New York land.

Kisil Point Woods, Letchworth State Park, NY

Ten minutes in, you hear a sudden scritch-a-scratch in the leaves to the right. You and your companion freeze — but it’s just a chipmunk. Surprising how much noise little Chip and Dale can make. These two gumshoes certainly are picking up the slack. A chipmunk you can handle, but not-so-much the voices echoing from the next ravine over. The park is still host to campers this late in the year, so you aren’t surprised. Still, the woods can play tricks on the mind. What seemed ominous on the Greenway earlier today turned out familiar. By that same token, what seems familiar in the woods could just be Mrs. Voorhees with an axe to grind.

The voices are the least of your worries as you enter a quiet clearing. What you witness can only be explained in movies — a makeshift hut, built of sticks, leaning against an old hemlock, like a shaky scene out of The Blair Witch Project. You’re sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. Like Bigfoot, or aliens. The truth must be out there, but you’d rather not hang out and wait for it to present itself.

Letchworth Witch Project

Beyond the Blair Witch clearing, the trail lifts up steeply before settling into a pine summit. Pausing at the base of the summit, your companion thinks you’ve gone too far. “Too far?” you return, adding: “Or not far enough?” She waits while you climb over the summit, where you start to hear a rustling in the woods. A chipmunk again, you’re sure.

Rustle, rustle.

A beat.

LOUD RUSTLE.

Well, you best get to hitting that old dusty trail. You back away slowly down the hill toward the witch hut, which seems relatively tame at this moment. You don’t want to end up standing in the corner of the basement of the Blair Witch house. Your companion smirks, poking you on the chest. “‘Or not far enough?‘” she says mockingly.

Eddy’s Overlook

Safely in your car, you continue down Park Road as the sun sinks deeper in the sky. The road roughly follows the valley carved out by the Genesee River, but your view of the canyon is often obscured by its endless forest. Only when the trees suddenly open up do you finally witness the sun soaking a vast section of canyon, cliffs upon cliffs upon mountains. You pull over and step out to what you discover is Eddy’s Overlook, where Wolf Creek Falls feed the lazy Genesee.

Looking down-stream/northeast from Eddy’s Overlook

The light at this time, with this sky, feels unreal. Like you’re in an old movie from the ’70s — or suffering from magic mushroom flashbacks. The air is electric. Looking down, you are reminded of standing atop Manhattan skyscrapers or scaling Edinburgh Castle. You are a thousand feet tall in these moments, invincible and omnipotent. You and your companion stand arm-in-arm, surveying this marvel of earth, water, and time.

God’s Land

Zeppo’s Creekside Creamery

If you want to get home before dark, the only way out is the way you came in. So you backtrack past endless forests, past the Kisil Point trailhead and the Olympic pool, now closed for the season. You exit the park and wave good-bye to the Greenway 33-mile trailhead, back to the Village of Mount Morris. But no trip to Mount Morris would be complete without a stop at your favorite ice cream shop: Zeppo’s Creekside Creamery.

Homemade vanilla ice cream with cotton-candy cake crumbs

You’ve been a regular customer for a while now, having tried everything from Fireball to the Lucky Charms-inspired Pot O’Gold. The friendly owner and ice cream maker welcomes you with a warm smile. Your companion asks about the colorful pink and blue dots in the bag behind her.

“You remember back in the school cafeteria,” the owner asks, “Those ice cream bars with the strawberry or chocolate cake crumbs?”

“And peanut butter if you were lucky,” you recall.

“They sent me cotton-candy instead,” she shrugs. Now that’s your kind of topping. You ask for two vanillas with the crumbs. As she prepares your ice cream, the owner mentions the upcoming Scarecrow Stroll in Geneseo, where they’ll be scooping up a selection of autumn-themed flavors along Main Street. You’ll be sure to stop by.

A little chilly now that the sun has set, you and your companion elect to eat your cones in the car rather than your usual picnic table. A long journey through the woods deserves a reward. You spent a week one afternoon in Mount Morris and Letchworth Park, and that alone is a reward in and of itself. Then again it could be the ice cream talking.

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