Phil and Karen's Adventures: Firetower

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Firetower - Allegany, NY

The Mt. Tuscarora Firetower trail is perhaps the most famous in Allegany State Park. Growing up, it was a hike I did several times with many close friends and family members. When I started bringing Karen to Allegany, I was not a very good "hiking host". I would hardly take her on any hikes because, well, I was lazy. I finally promised to do it in 2010.

The Firetower trail is not a loop and its elevation profile is not symmetrical. Growing up, we always hiked the longer, more gradual side first, choosing to descend on the steeper side. However, I am easily annoyed by gradual uphill hikes; if I have to go up, might as well get it over with quickly. I convinced everyone to attack it from the steep side first.

The day was very hot and humid, probably over 85 degrees. The uphill was hard but not crazy, and even though we were all dripping in the heat, we dispatched it rather quickly. It was over a year ago, but if I had to guess, I'd say the difficult uphill lasted no longer than 1.5 miles. Shortly after that, we came upon the firetower itself. Maybe I had built up the hike (and the tower) a bit too much to Karen, because she was very underwhelmed by the tower itself. It's an old, simple steel structure that's not much to look at. These days, it's not so much about seeing the tower itself, but of doing a hike that is so intrinsic to the Allegany experience.

1-2 miles after leaving the tower, my Uncle Mark discovered he had left his camera back at the tower. He and I jogged back to get it, but in moving the other direction on the trail, accidentally took a smaller tributary to the main trail, lengthening our backtrack. We finally found his camera and jogged back to catch up with everyone else.

The trail is supposed to end where the Brow cabin trail begins, but somehow our entire group of 10 people got off track and ended up emerging from the woods behind the tennis courts at the back of the Quaker athletic field. Being Allegany veterans, we all could have found our way back to our cabins blind from this point, but it was more disconcerting that we had gotten off trail on such a well marked path. Oh well.

Firetower is not challenging or exciting, but it is so purely Allegany that I would rank it alongside Bear Caves as THE quintessential Allegany hike, one that could be done year after year.