Description
PLEASE NOTE: Breaking Ground: The Nature Conservancy is set to break ground in April on a new, shared-use trail system at West Hill Preserve. The groundbreaking is the first phase of a plan for a completed trail system of up to 13.5 miles of inclusive and environmentally sustainable trails—including a new section of the Finger Lakes Trail at West Hill. Designed for mountain bikers, hikers, and runners the trail system will be 3.5 miles and is expected to be completed by Fall 2023. Interested in volunteering? Join Genesee Regional Off-Road Cyclists (GROC) for family-friendly workdays to assist with the trail build. Learn more at www.mygroc.com.
Located at the southern edge of the Bristol Hills, the West Hill Preserve offers visitors an opportunity to view ecological succession in progress. Ecological succession is the gradual change in plant communities that occupy a given area. Succession begins when natural vegetation is disturbed or removed for reasons including fire, farming or severe flooding.
Over time, different kinds of pioneering plants colonize the area, become established, and eventually die off, leaving room for the next community. Ultimately, under natural conditions, succession reaches a relatively stable condition, and this community is said to be a climax community. This usually takes more than a hundred years.
More than 125 years ago, field cultivation was incrementally phased out on this property, allowing the abandoned fields to mature at their own pace. Today, visitors can ramble through many different stages of natural succession and imagine what West Hill will look like when the field and shrublands eventually return to Appalachian oak-hickory forest.
