Biking the Ontario Pathway

Hi Blog. On Friday, October 24, 2014, we were looking forward to getting out and about after a few days of rain.  We checked out Trail.com to see what there was in the way of trails around Canandaigua. We came across a link to the Ontario Pathways Rail Trail. Here is Kathy at the trailhead, which is about a mile east of the Canandaigua Municipal Parking lot on Ontario Street.

The trail starts in Canandaigua and runs east to Stanley, where it turns north and ends in Phelps for a total of 23 miles.  What makes this rail trail so unusual is that it is privately owned. Ontario Pathways, Inc. is a private, non-profit membership organization governed by a board of directors. There are over 300 members. The organization owns, develops and maintains the trail property on an all-volunteer basis. There are no paid employees. Funding for preservation of the land and development of the trail has been raised by the organization via memberships, fund drives, fund-raising events and donations from private individuals, organizations and businesses.



The old rail bed is fairly wide. There are some sections that are gravel, but the majority of trail is mowed grass. For the first mile, you are riding next to an "active" rail line. By active, they mean one or two trains a week. In about a mile, you move away from the other rail line and begin your journey through farm country. Here Kathy heads down a nice straight section of trail.

With so many leaves off the trees, you can see secrets hidden in the woods. Here an old farm pickup found its final resting place.

After a couple miles, we came to the Outlet Bridge. The Canandaigua Outlet begins as a natural outflow on the north end of Canandaigua Lake in the city of Canandaigua and flows north all the way to the Erie Canal. Here Dave begins to walk out onto the Outlet Bridge to take a couple photos.

Here is the view south toward Canandaigua Lake. We are too far away to see the lake itself. There is still a little color in the leaves. Fall is not done yet.

We continued on our way for a few more miles when we came across dozens of jack-o-lanters. We later learned that the Great Pumpkin Walk is Ontario Pathways annual fundraiser. Each year local growers provide pumpkins and dozens of volunteers carve hundreds of jack-o-lanterns to line the trail. The proceeds of this family friendly event support trail maintenance activities for the year. Here Kathy poses with a few of the volunteers.

While we missed the Pumpkin Walk this year, we found that dozens of "dead bodies" still line the trail. This frisky fellow was lolling about in the leaves.

As we continued, we found that some sections of the trail were completely blanketed by leaves. This made for some exciting biking. We found we had to hold tight to the handlebars because you couldn't see the rocks, roots or holes in the trail until it was too late. However, the sound of leaves crunching under tires was very satisfying.  Crunch, crunch, crunch....

We were hoping to reach the trail's signature bridge at mile marker 11.4 for lunch, but the going was slow. We stopped at mm 7.5 to fuel up. We pulled off the trail and had a nice sunny view of this farm.

The low bridge which crossed this drainage was removed to allow farm equipment to move back and forth. The trail comes down off the rail grade and then back up again. This was our lunch spot. Here Kathy enjoys her chocolate peanut butter and cherry preserves on honey whole wheat. Dave opted for the cappuccino peanut butter on his sandwich. (Designer Peanut Butter - You can find really fun stuff at Farmer's Markets.)

We both really like the way this little church stood out on top of the hill.

Yay! We finally made it to the signature bridge over Flint Creek. Here Kathy is walking her bike to the far side. The bridge is over 300 feet long and more than 40 feet high.

That's a long way down, but it you look closely enough you can see our shadows waving to you!

We didn't take too many photos on the way back.  Here is a through-girder bridge that crosses over Highways 5/20. We passed this on the way to the signature bridge, but didn't stop to take a picture because we really, really wanted to get to our destination. Here is Dave on the far side.



It was just about 4:30 when we took this last photo.  We had about two miles left, but the sun was beginning to go behind the clouds. The shadows are getting longer and the day is getting colder. Brrr. Here is one last look at the Ontario Pathways.

We haven't done much grass trail riding and didn't expect how much it would slow us down. We are not speed demons, but we can usually cover about 10 miles in an hour. On this trail, we could only travel about 5 mph on the way up and 7 mph on the way back. We'll remember that next time we decide to travel 11.5 mile one-way on grass and leaves.