This week my friend Jessica and I got a bunch of hiking in! We started out with a short hiking day on Wednesday. We put in about 4 miles of easy to moderate hiking at Eternal Flame, as well as the next hike at Hunter's Creek.
Eternal Flame is well known for the natural gas leak behind a small waterfall that stays lit. It's a pretty short and easy hike along a scenic creek bed. Hunter's Creek was a more rustic and primitive hike through the forest with a small creek running through it.
We did our own cairn here by the flame. Cairn is a gaelic word meaning "heap of stones", and in hiking it can symbolize the correct trail, or simply mark your presence there.
On Thursday we planned an all day hike of much longer distance and more elevation changes. We started at Letchworth State Park in the morning and began halfway through the Gorge Trail to see the Lower, Middle, and Upper Waterfalls. They were just beautiful! Toward the Upper Falls and the train bridge there was a thunderstorm moving in toward us...
...where we then proceeded to get DRENCHED by a downpour for about 30 minutes of hiking. We connected to a different trail for our way back through the forest. Thankfully the rain moved off, but it left our trail very muddy!
We made it back to my truck in decent time after about 8 miles hiking and had lunch before our next hike!
After lunch we hit the road for another scenic but more intense hike at the neighboring Stony Brook State Park. This hike follows along a beautiful creek with many small waterfalls down in a Gorge. At the end of the Gorge Trail, we connected to a different trail on the East Rim which led us up and down many elevations at the top of the Gorge.
This hike totaled about 4 miles, bringing us to a total of 12 miles of hiking on Thursday!! We headed home in the evening feeling sore but satisfied with our adventures.
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