The Keuka Outlet Trail
Our trip began by heading for Keuka Lake. We live near Ithaca at the south
end of Cayuga Lake.
The next lake to the West is Seneca Lake. The one after that (shaped like a
Y) is Keuka Lake. The next lake is Canadigua Lake, which we also saw on
this trip. Here's a map of the finger lakes if you are having trouble picturing it:
The Keuka Outlet is the stream that empties Keuka Lake into Seneca Lake.
It is about 8 miles long with a 278 foot drop, and was formed when the
stream found a crack in the underlying Tully limestone. A
canal was built along the outlet in 1831, called the
Crooked Lake
Canal. It never turned a profit, and it was sold in the 1880s. The
"Corkscrew Railway" was built along the old tow-path. The railroad was damaged beyond
repair by Hurricane Agnes in 1972, and later it was turned into the
Keuka Outlet Trail.
We brought our bicycles along for the trip, using our bike rack for the
first time. We parked in the middle, and rode towards Dresden on Seneca Lake.
All along the path were abandoned mills:
Eventually we got to the end of the trail and continued on a bit until we
had a view of Seneca Lake:
Beside the trail you could see the remnants of the old canal:
The wildflower Dame's
Rocket was growing everywhere. It is an escaped wildflower from Europe.
Kristina really likes the colors it has:
The first falls we come to is Cascade Mill Falls:
Not much further on is Seneca Mill Falls, where they don't want you playing
on the old foundations:
Here is a better view of the falls:
We kept pressing on, and eventually arrived at Penn Yan on Keuka Lake. Penn
Yan gets its name because the original settlers were Pennsylvanians
and Connecticut Yankees.
We rode our bike through a pretty park, past the piles of fuzzballs released
by what I think were cottonwood trees. Just past the youth baseball field
we got to the end of the trail, at the very top of Keuka Lake:
After a brief pause we turned around and rode back to our car. We passed
some old mill machinery:
Near Seneca Mills Falls are the remnants of Lock 17. The canal had a large
number of locks for such a short length.
We made it back to our car, cleared all of the accumulated bugs off our
arms, and continued with our trip. Here is a GPS map of our ride:
We happened upon the
Seneca Farms Ice Cream Stand which had really good ice cream. I
got "Funfetti" which tasted just like the frosting. Here were our
options:
We took the scenic route along the lake, down to the middle of the Y, then
continued back up to our campground which is at the top of the left branch
of the Y.
We checked in and managed to reserve a campsite at Keuka Lake
State Park despite the relative incompetence of the huge number of
youthful staff members running the place.
We set up our camp:
Then we decided to visit some other nearby waterfalls....
Continue on to Conklin Gully