The Baltimore Woods site and system of nine trails is open to the public everyday.

The Baltimore Woods site is owned by "Save the County, Inc.", a local land trust who contracts with CNE for management, utilization, and maintenance of the property.

No site visitation fee is required although donations are always accepted.

Visitors may pick-up self-guided brochures and trail maps at the Pavilion and Headquarters building. Please do not bring dogs to the hiking trails.

CNE contracts with Save the County to manage the 182-acre Baltimore Woods nature preserve.

Click here for a printable map of our hiking trails!

Click on thumbnails below to see full-sized images:

Valley Trail	View from the Overlook Trail	Valley Trail
Tree identification markers along the Arboretum Trail	Bridge along the Valley Trail.	Benches along the Griffiths Trail
Pavilion at Main Parking lot. There are free trail maps available at this pavilion along with a 3-D map illustrating each trail and describing major features of each trail. There is also a Sign-In/Comment sheet for anyone visiting Baltimore Woods. We ask people to sign-in for two reasons: first, for safety and second, so we can keep a count on how many people are visiting. This is especially important when it comes to securing funding for Baltimore Woods. Please sign in. Thank you.	Entrance to the Mildred E. Faust Woodland Wildflower Garden Trail	Pioneer Herb Garden located on the Pioneer trail. This herb garden is a replica of gardens used 200 years ago when pioneers were first getting established here.
	Overview of Phillips Pond. This is located along a spur off the Field-to-Forest Trail. A wildlife blind for viewing the pond discretely is located on a spur off the new Boundary Trail.	View from the Overlook Trail

Pioneer Cabin located along the Pioneer Trail. This cabin is similar to the type of cabins pioneers lived in when settling in this area.	Log along the Field-to-Forest Trail.	Footbridge along the Griffiths Trail	Tree along Griffiths Trail

October 24, 2004 marked the re-dedication of the Dee Atkinson Arboretum Trail. Be sure to visit soon and enjoy the newly marked trail. Signposts identify each species in the arboretum, and any appropriate dedication information.

Mr. Bob Atkinson helps reveal the new sign marking Dee Atkinson Arboretum Trail.


Family and friends listen as John Weeks leads the tour of the arboretum.

With the help of SUNY ESF's Professor Diane Kuehn and her Tourism class, CNE mapped out the course for the new trail (see map here). The trail starts and ends on existing trail sections, but takes a wide loop through an overlook of Phillips Pond, descends into the lovely secluded valley of Boulder Brook, and cuts through the infamous sand pit that CNE's campers lovingly call "Miami Beach". From there the trail crosses meadows where male woodcocks sometimes perform their comical spiral courtship flight in early spring. Then the trail descends along Spring Brook to Baltimore Brook through some of my favorite spring birding habitat on the property. The trail adds over 8000 feet to the existing hiking trails at the woods.

Recently, a letter to the editor of a local newspaper raised serious questions about the impact on wildlife along a section of the trail that follows Baltimore Brook. This section of trail, which was originally developed as a farm road nearly a century ago, was developed as a hiking trail in the 1970's when Baltimore Woods was originally purchased by Save the County (see section on map marked as a "disturbed area" immediately adjacent to the gravel pit). At the time, woods covered less than a third of the Baltimore Woods property! According to John Weeks, today over 80% of the trail system is wooded.

John remembers that when the original hiking trail system was developed in the 1970's there were also considerable complaints and concerns raised that the wildlife value of the area was being ruined for the sake of hikers. Within days of the original trail development, however, deer began using the trails and songbird nesting along the trail routes showed no visible signs of disruption.

The board, staff, and volunteers at CNE are glad to know that people care enough about the woods to complain when they perceive that a treasured part of it is being disrupted. Nonetheless, we wanted to assure everyone that our intention and the consequences of the trail improvements are not to create any long-term disturbance of wildlife and habitat.

Some trail disruption would have been necessary even if the new long-trail were not under development, however, because of shortcut-induced erosion. When hikers see an opportunity to shorten their trip back up the valley by cutting across a slope from one switchback to another, they invariably trample the fragile slope vegetation. Over time, foot traffic and rain work together to further destabilize the now-exposed slope. Silt and clay that erode from these shortcuts quickly finds its way into Baltimore Brook, where it is harmful to aquatic life such as fish and the insect life that sustains them.

John and his volunteer crew held numerous planning sessions in order to assure that the trail improvements would stabilize the slope and at the same time, minimize construction-caused siltation into the brook. CNE would be hard-pressed to find a more careful and dedicated crew to undertake this job. Criticism can be hard to take when you feel you have taken great pains to avoid problems. When I was a thin-skinned girl, my parents would console me with this advice: If you never want to be criticized by anyone then just be sure to never do anything! In the case of the trail work, not doing anything would have been far more harmful to wildlife in the end.

Just this morning John returned from a hike along the nearly completed trail. He brought in some turkey down feathers that were right on the new trail and was excited to report numerous deer tracks across the trail. Beginnings are often messy and painful - as anyone who has had the joy of bringing a child into this world can witness. However, just as one of the joys of parenting is to watch your young one grow up and take flight (in spite of skinned knees and visits to the emergency room). This new trail will give hikers one of Central New York's more splendid nature-study experiences for generations to come. We hope you can visit Baltimore Woods and check out the new trail for yourselves soon! When you do, however, please stay on the trails, enjoy your hike, and let us know what you saw along the way.

In the recent geologic past, Central New York was repeatedly covered with more than a mile thick sheet of glacial ice. No where is the impression of the Pleistocene glacier more evident than on this 170-acres of forest, field, and valleys.

The headquarters, pavilion, and pioneer log cabin are located on relatively flat, well-drained deposits from glacial melt water commonly called "outwash". Because outwash materials have been reworked by melt water before their final deposition, they consist of rounded, well-sorted materials that readily allow water to drain through them.

Click here for a map showing Glacial Meltwater Action and Onondaga County!!

Visitors can observe the nature of glacial outwash materials in the gravel pit, located off the Overlook Trail. Other glacial features such as kames and kettles can also be observed at the site.