Brookton Hill & Dale Star Posts (2026)

FLRC Challenge
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Use this topic for posts that will collect community stars for the Brookton Hill & Dale course. You can also ask questions or make comments about this course.

Here’s how it works.

  • Click the “Post Using This Template” button below to create a new post with a Story heading and boilerplate text.
  • Replace the boilerplate text with your report for one or both sections. The Story header is key for distinguishing between posts and replies—don’t change it.
  • Your post must be on the same calendar day as your run as entered in the leaderboard.

Story

To pick up a community star, replace this text with a write-up of what your run was like, a photo you took on the run, a link to your Strava track, or something similar. Don’t delete the Story heading above.

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Story

Bad Newt News
I was on the sidelines for the 2022 Challenge, so this was my first time on most of these roads. Overall, a very enjoyable country run, even on a cloudy day with brief spots of sun and sprinkles, though with the nearby dark clouds, I was under frequent threat of a Desmond-ic deluge @steve-desmond.

Cows, corn fields, historical markers, views, old barns, a farm stand with an old truck, and many flowers. I started the run thinking it was pretty cool to be running along Six-Mile Creek here, after running along it on other courses closer to Ithaca. Later, I saw signs posted for Coddington Valley rail trail under development, which I assume will connect to South Hill Rec Way someday.

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Along Coddington, I was surprised to see a red newt on the shoulder of the road. Unfortunately, it was dead stiff. Turned onto Ridgeway Road after the long stretch on Coddington, and took a brief detour where it crosses the rail trail under development to check out a large pond and wetlands area.Thoroughly soaked my shoes doing this!

Shortly after turning onto White Church Road from Ridgeway, I saw several hundred newts, maybe more. But the bad news is they were all dead, mostly squished by traffic, except for this one

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I used my phone to try to nudge him to the side of the road. He did not care for this and either rolled on his back and pretended to be dead or took poses like this as I nudged him

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The dead newts finally thinned out some but I didn’t stop seeing them until shortly before Caroline Depot Road.

I enjoyed the last few miles on the north side of the main road with an old farmhouses and another cemetery among the sights. I started down the seasonally maintained section of Vandermark Road to find it blocked by several large NYSEG trucks working on newly installed utility poles. I managed to make my way past the trucks on the opposite side from where they were working and no one said anything.

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