Two towns down!!
Webster Park
My visit to Webster Park today marks the completion of two entire towns. Granted, the first was East Rochester with its four parks, and Webster, whose parks are very close to my home, but I still consider it an achievement and it makes me feel like I'm making progress.
County-owned Webster Park is located at the north end of town on the shores of Lake Ontario. I like to think of it as a park with two faces. The section right on the lake is probably what most people are most familiar with. There are four lodges/shelters (including the very popular White House), lots of picnic tables and grills, a playground and a fishing pier -- shorter than the one at Irondequoit Bay Marine Park, but which enjoys as many sightseers. It's a beautiful area which attracts families and romantics to the lake.
The images below show some scenes from lakeside, including a shot of how some of the lakeside locals live.
Like an iceberg, the greatest proportion of the park is on the south side of Lake Road. There are another dozen lodges and shelters for rent, tennis courts, a sledding hill, and a 41-site campground. I'm pretty sure that Webster Park is the only east side park with camping facilities. I started my trek in the most-used section of this area, near the tennis courts and the Valley View shelter, where I tracked down a letterbox. There is a bathroom house up there, but strangely, it was locked. This area gets a lot of use, so I can't believe they open it only when the shelter is in use.
The south side of the park also has a lot of trails. It is here that I spent most of my time when I visited. Map in hand, I traced out the route I wanted to hike, navigating perhaps 2 or 2.5 miles of the park's five trails. But it turned out not to be as easy as that.
Webster Park's sun-dappled trails are very natural and beautiful. They stretch south from Lake Road and it's not long before any traffic noise is overcome by the sounds of birds, tree frogs, chattering squirrels and the creaking of the trees in the wind. They are blazed and marked -- sort of. I did see some painted and one metal blaze on the blue and orange trails I was on. But there weren't anywhere near enough to keep a hiker confident at every intersection, and the painted blazes I saw are getting faded. The county also has installed several signposts at major intersections in an attempt to keep people on track.
However, although I consider myself pretty good with maps, there are so many intersections and so many side trails that I quickly got discombobulated. At one time it appears that each intersection was marked with a number, on the map and on a tree. But I only saw two of these numbers still in place. They would have been extremely helpful. The signposts were not a lot of help, either. Their main benefit, it seems to me, is to get you back to the shelter you came from or to a main road. In other words, when you get lost they'll get you home.
The images below show one of those faded blazes, a metal sign that was probably a blaze at one time, and one of the numbered intersections. The signposts tried to be helpful, but really aren't, especially when they've been removed from the post, like at this one intersection.
So basically, once I got into the bowels of the trail system on the Ridge Trail, and tried to connect to the Ryans Point Trail, I found it was a lost cause. So I just kept trekking, walking west until I came across something I recognized and which seemed to be on the map. I landed in the campground. At least from here I knew that if I kept walking north I would eventually hit the lake and could find my car. Thank goodness for the compass I had installed on my phone.)
Bottom line, this park has some very nice features and is worth the trip. But it could use some TLC if you want to really help out the hikers. Plus the stream down by the lake is gross and really takes away from the beauty of the area. Plus plus, the Wolf Cabin's "bathrooms" are an embarrassment. Has the county even considered razing this building?
So in the end, I did walk my 2 miles. But much of that was along the campground road and Lake Road. Not entirely satisfying.