August 20, 2018
Franklin Gulf Park, North Collins NY
4.2 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
As one of Erie County’s undeveloped parks, Franklin Gulf offers an excellent hiking experience with solitude, fantastic scenery and interesting things along the way. My son and I headed out in search of the park sign for the county sponsored Junior Ranger program and to get a great hike in at the beginning of the week. Though I discovered this park a few years back, I’ve only hiked it in autumn, spring and winter. As a “cooler” day this summer though, with rain just a couple days before, the waterfalls which rage in spring trickled nicely down the shale embankments.
Trail Conditions:
The trails in this park are well maintained and generally easy to follow. The trail system markings with their dots of various color can be confusing as you’ll have four blazes on the same tree but for the most part it makes sense. As you descend and ascend along the creek gully, you’ll have some climbs but the trails are even and rather moderately graded.
The Hike:
After locating the Junior Ranger park sign on a huge pine tree at the intersection of the blue and green trails, I plotted a few geocaches in the park along our way to the waterfall. We were very close to two of the caches but as they were inside of the gorge I decided not to venture down after them. My son still isn’t that sure on his feet and I didn’t want to risk it. He did find one medium sized cache, “tranquility,” down by the lower falls though.
One thing that we both noticed was the prevalence of mushrooms along the way. The wet and humid weather we’ve had for the last couple of weeks must have really spiked their growth. My favorite was a white coral fungus that grew upright on a log near the trail.
We also stumbled upon a fairy village on just the other side of the old chimney. Someone, or most likely a lot of people, spent quite a bit of time constructing over a dozen little houses. Most of them were carefully built with bark, sticks and rocks. Some had jeweled glass decorating their little yards. Though I know it is a violation of leave no trace, they were cute and clever to see and my son loved finding and studying them. Still, I’m not sure if they belong in a natural park. I think I’d be okay if they were only built with natural materials and left the fish tank stones at home.
Though we made a few side excursions, our turn around point today was the waterfall down at the confluence of Franklin Gulf and the creek. In other seasons, it runs from bank to bank but it was reduced to a slow steady trickle. Before the rain hit, these rocks were probably dry though. As the creek bed was for the most part dry, it enabled exploration to hidden pools filled with tadpoles, frogs and crayfish.
On our way out, we explored a few side trails and made plans for future excursions in the park that my son said he enjoyed very much. I think the break in the humidity and finding some cool things helped in him really enjoying this park. We also spent some time setting up our new Multimok Bivymok hammock, of which you’ll see an upcoming review post.
