Today Emily Lampa is at Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve and she is talking with the co-author of “Secret Places of WNY – 25 Scenic Hikes, William McKeever.
This weekend there is a launch party at Reinstein Woods for his book. McKeever says there will be an open house at Reinstein and this Saturday at 11am they are doing an author talk, talking about the book, our thoughts that went into it, the legacy of the original author. He says there was an original book that this is a revision of 30 years later, so the legacy of our co-author and just what went int the book and some of our hikes.
The original book was done in1994 and the author was Bruce Kushner. The reason the launch party for this new book is happening at Reinstein is because of how special it was to the original author of this book.
McKeever says Bruce was an educator, he was a researcher, and he was also a very passionate advocator. On the research side, he says Bruce did a lot of work in documenting old growth forest and when Reinstein was transitioning from being private property to being a state resource, he helped a lot in documenting the old growth forest here and just getting things ready in that way. He says Bruce is someone who has put a lot of effort in a lot of places, but Reinstein was very special to him.
Emily says there is something special here at Reinstein, specifically called the sanctuary. If you come out here you can some something, it’s literally an ancient forest. McKeever says, as an ancient forest it means it has been untouched by humans or not impacted by humans so, these trees have been here for a long, long time. They are very mature, they are set aside. MeKeever says old growth stands are pretty rare and Reinstein is very fortunate that it has a portion of its property that is old growth.
The hikes in the book are accessible hikes for everyone. McKeever says we kind of hoped with book, we could encourage people who are not in hiking culture or used to getting out to go out. Sometimes, he says, we feel the word hiking is intimidating when really all it is, is a nice little walk in the woods and the vast majority of the hikes in the book are very moderate or very easy to do; many of them have paved trails, grass trails, or boardwalk trails so its great for families, it’s great for first-time hikers and it’s also great for people used to going out and want to see some of the very best places in WNY and accessible within a days drive
