We hiked a beautiful loop in this park just past weekend. On that day, when we pulled into the lot off
Goodale Road at the southern tip of Twin Lakes it was nearly filled with cars and dozens of people were amassing for a karate activity which was still taking place three hours
later. That lot was empty today as we headed north on Goodalte in order to park in the lot near the beautiful visitor's center. As soon as we pulled into the state park we saw
hundreds of people amassing for some event. Tents were up, orange cones were in the road. Someone in the road directing traffic told us that a bicycle race was taking place
today and that I might need to yield to the bicycles on the park roads. What they forgot to tell us was that the race was also on the trails. And they seemed to be
following the exact hike I mapped out for us! So a good part of our hike today was running on narrow paths to avoid speeding bikes, repeatedly jumping off the narrow
path, dodging poison ivy. Whew! I did manage to wing it a bit and worked in a visit to Gardner's Pond, the highlight, not only for its beauty but because it wasn't part of the
bicycle race path!
Following this map we parked a the park office (just west of Aeroflex Lake) and headed SE through the open field to Blue, which we took all the way south to Red, dodging bicycles in spurts. When we reached Red, we decided to head east to Gardner's Pond where we walked to the boundary of the park and airport and then took a spur on the southern bank, watching a beautiful Great Blue Heron lunching. We then headed back towards read but found a White trail heading west (not on the map) which saved us the trouble of backtracking all the way back to Red. This unmapped White trail took us back to Red, which we then took north, once again dodging bicycles, until we reached Yellow (which is a paved park road). The race was not using this paved road, so we decided to take this all the way back to the car before first eating lunch in a shady picnic bench by the visitor's center. Total distance hiked today was 4.8 miles in 2.5 hours.
|
In the lot |
Horses! |
Field south of park office |
Exploring Yellow paved path |
Decided to take Blue |
Blue... |
...heading south... |
...through the woods |
|
|
Race signs |
|
Peace! |
Blue is very narrow in spots |
Tape to help bicyclists |
Climbing on Blue |
Hornet's nest |
Damselfly |
Horseshoe prints |
Park facility building |
Path to Gardner's Pond |
Woods road to pond |
|
Sign at southern bank |
Phragmites at pond |
Heading north east of pond |
[Photo by Laura] |
Airport property beyond |
View of Lake Gardner |
Swallowtail |
Airport sign |
Lake Gardner |
View SE |
|
Dragonfly |
Dead field mouse |
Cat tails |
Lake Gardner |
Great Blue Heron |
Red-winged Blackbird |
Mating Japanese beetles |
On southern bank |
View NW |
Great Blue Heron |
|
|
Loads of water lilies |
Airport buildings across pond |
Swamp wildflower |
Water lilies |
Heron in distance |
Looking for lunch |
Swallowing lunch |
Red-winged Blackbird |
Flying off |
|
Dragonfly on phragmite |
Red eft |
Long-tail Salamander |
Heading north on Red |
2 of dozens of passing bicycles |
Abandoned buildings in field |
|
Path tomfoolery [photo by Laura] |
Laura on Yellow |
|
Paved Yellow trail |
Eastern Bluebird |
Brown-headed Cowbird |
|
Chipping Sparrow |
Lake Aeroflex east |
Fishing in Lake Aeroflex |
Beautiful moth |
|
|
Photographs and content copyright © Dan Balogh Web design by Dan Balogh |