Days 95 & 96: Letchworth State Park, NY

I started out riding from the point where on Day 94 I had finally realized that I had overshot my destination.  From there it was a short distance to the Lehigh Valley Trail, a converted rail trail.  That lasted about 12 miles, at which point I rode south to Avon, NY, where I picked up New York Route 39.  We followed that to just past Castile, NY and the southern end of Letchworth State Park.  My total distance for the day was just a hair over 50 miles.

Lehigh Valley Trail.

 We went as far south as we did in order to trim a few miles off of our ride for Friday (Day 97), as even with doing a few extra miles now, we still have 80 miles or so that we'll need to cover in order to reach our next campsite.

We camped at Highbanks Campground ($31, power and free showers), near the north end of Letchworth State Park.  We regularly see very young racoons (at least four different ones) passing through our campsite, yet no sign of any mama raccoons.  Most of the youngsters are totally unconcerned by people.  Of course the interesting thing is that dogs are only allowed on three of the eight campground loops here, and we have run into people who don't have dogs and stay on the dog loops specifically to avoid raccoons...

Letchworth State Park is known as the "Grand Canyon of the East," and was recently voted the best campground in America by the readers of USA Today.  The main attractions at the park are a series of three waterfalls at the southern end of the park, though there are plenty of other attractions.

Upper Falls.

Middle Falls.

Lower Falls.

Some of the 127 steps leading down to Lower Falls.

A canyon backdrop...

I left Alea and Lana at the campground on Thursday (Day 96), so that I could go do some family history research about Sheldon Wiggins.  That meant a trip first to the courthouse in Bath, NY, followed by a similar trip to the courthouse in Belmont, NY.  I probably could have spent more time in the latter, and by doing so pieced a bit more of that puzzle together, but it was unlikely to shed any light on the main issue that I was interested in.

If we had not already booked the next two nights at Lake Erie State Park, we may have considered spending more time here, as there is plenty more to do.  But the weekend of the Fourth is a bit like Musical Chairs - you want to be sure that you have a place to sit when the music stops.