Finger Lakes National Forest

New York has no sprawling national parks. What it has, wedged between Seneca and Cayuga Lakes in the Finger Lakes region, is this: 16,259 acres of second-growth woodland and open pasture, the only national forest in the state. Over 30 miles of trails cross gorges, ravines, and fields where cattle still graze from May through October — share the pasture, work the locking gates. The forest is administered jointly with Vermont's Green Mountain National Forest out of Rutland. It is the second-smallest national forest in the United States.