A Cascadilla Gorge hike during Reunion 2023. (Jason Koski / Cornell University) Bear Hugs New Book Invites You to Take a Hike (or 50), In and Around Ithaca Penned by a University retiree, the guide to getting out into the region’s natural beauty features maps by a recent grad “Bear Hugs” celebrates heartwarming stories of Cornellians on the Hill and around the world. Have an idea? Email us at cornellians@cornell.edu! By Beth Saulnier Cornellians with even the mildest interest in the great outdoors are likely familiar with the Ithaca area’s “big three” state parks—Buttermilk Falls, Treman, and Taughannock Falls—as well as the Cascadilla Gorge Trail, which offers a quick route between Collegetown and Downtown for those willing to tackle its many (many!) stairs. But how about Lick Brook? Or Shindagin Hollow? Or the Black Diamond Trail? Or Connecticut Hill? These and many more are detailed in Best 50 Hikes in and around Ithaca NY, a new guidebook from the Cayuga Trails Club. Penned by Big Red retiree and longtime club member Myra Shulman, the softcover volume features dozens of custom maps by Russell Kwong ’25, a former urban and regional studies major in AAP who tackled the project his senior spring. “I started with a naive idea that, ‘I’ll just do 25 hikes; how hard can this be?’” says Shulman, a retired senior researcher in ecology and evolutionary biology who long taught at Shoals Marine Lab. “I made a list of 25 places, and immediately realized that many of them have multiple great hikes. So I ended up with 50, before I finally made myself stop.” Available only in physical form and priced around $28, the book is carried by several Ithaca retailers; at shops on campus (the Cornell Store, the Botanic Gardens welcome center, and Wild Birds Unlimited at the Lab of Ornithology); or via the Trails Club’s website. I made a list of 25 places, and immediately realized that many of them have multiple great hikes. So I ended up with 50, before I finally made myself stop. Author Myra Shulman It’s divided into two sections: hikes located in and around Downtown Ithaca, and those that are farther flung into the countryside. For each one, it offers detailed information—not just on typical topics like mileage, elevation, difficulty level, fees, seasonal closures, and the availability of facilities like restrooms, but also whether the routes are wheelchair accessible and if the trailhead can be reached via local TCAT buses. Shulman in Shindagin Hollow State Forest. In a grid toward the end, Shulman ranks the hikes by difficulty, from easy—like the nearly flat Gorge Trail at Taughannock Falls State Park, a two-mile round trip alongside a meandering creek bed—to strenuous, such as a 7.4-mile trek on the Finger Lakes Trail through Robinson Hollow State Forest with a 1,650-foot gain in elevation. “There’s so much great nature in and around Ithaca, and everyone should get out there and enjoy it,” Shulman says. “There are health benefits to being out there; there’s joy in being out there. So being able to share information about where to go to have those benefits is just wonderful.” As Shulman notes, part of the impetus for the project was to counter the misconception that since many of the state parks’ most popular and scenic trails aren’t open part of the year for safety reasons, the region’s winter hiking options are paltry. “But there are so many interesting places to go,” she says, “including other trails at those same state parks that you can hike on through the winter—some of which provide you with views of the waterfalls, just not on the closed gorge trails.” The book is divided into two sections: hikes located in and around Downtown Ithaca, and those that are farther flung into the countryside. Shulman recruited Kwong to the project through his membership in the Cornell Mapping Society, a small group of students who meet weekly to share their love of cartography. They also play geographic games like GeoGuessr, in which players are “dropped” somewhere around the globe and have to figure out their location. Happy Trails: A Sampling of Kwong’s Maps (Story continues below) The Cascadilla Gorge Trail. Fall Creek Gorge and Cornell’s Newman Arboretum. The Lindsay-Parsons Biodiversity Preserve in West Danby. Lime Hollow Nature Center in Cortland. “I thought it was a perfect opportunity to tie in my educational experiences learning GIS [geographic information systems] in the classroom,” says the NYC-based Kwong, “and getting myself more exposed to the Ithaca surroundings.” Kwong spent more than a year iterating the book’s illustrations, using a program called ArcGIS Pro he’d learned from a freshman-year class. I thought it was a perfect opportunity to tie in my educational experiences learning GIS in the classroom and getting myself more exposed to the Ithaca surroundings. Russell Kwong ’25 He drew on such resources as the New York State Parks system, the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, the Finger Lakes Land Trust, Cornell Botanic Gardens, Google Maps, and previous Trails Club publications. While Shulman “ground-truthed” all the trail maps, he says, he went on a number of the hikes himself—and for those he didn’t, he traversed them virtually using Google Maps satellite view. Kwong in Treman State Park. “Maps are amazing—I really love how they tell a story,” says Kwong, who was recently hired as an environmental specialist at the state Department of Transportation. “There are so many stylistic choices involved in making maps. They’re like a mystery you can uncover to understand more about the world around you.” Top: A Cascadilla Gorge hike during Reunion 2023 (Jason Koski / Cornell University); all other images provided. Published July 8, 2026 Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ Other stories You may like Alumni Big Red (and White): 2022 Alumni Wine Collection Launches Chime In Professional Reinventions Can Be Hard—But Also Very Rewarding Cornelliana Big Red Books, Perfect for Gifting