Running the Pinnacle Hill Range

Introduction

One of my latest outdoor running adventures was a 10+ mile run through the Pinnacle Hill Range in Rochester, NY. I mentioned in a recent post, Pinnacle Hill is the highest point in Rochester, however this is just one of the 5 hills that are part of this range.

As a fun activity, I decided to run through the Pinnacle Hill range, which consists of Oak Hill (now it is part of URMC River Campus), Mount Hope Cemetery, Highland Park, the infamous Pinnacle Hill, and lastly Cobbs Hill.

Running through all of these sections is a good balance of road and trail running, which makes a tough decision to on which shoes to wear. Ultimately, I decided on using my road shoes (New Balance Fuel Cells) and I took off.

Mount Hope Cemetery + Old Oak Hill (River Campus)

The beginning of this adventure I ran by Mount Hope Cemetery and old Oak Hill, which were both surprisingly flat. Although, URMC River Campus now stands where the old Oak Hill used to be (full history of this can be found on RocWiki) it makes sense that it was relatively flat. Looking back I would have run through the cemetery to get more elevation during my run and to add to the fun of it!

Highland Park

Next up, I ran through Highland Park. This is home to many Lilacs and is a fun park to walk or run through. As expected I started to gain some elevation through here and it gave me a good reason to slow down and enjoy some of the flowers and views.

Pinnacle Hill

Onto the next hill, Pinnacle Hill. This is by far my favorite hills to run in Rochester. It offers a nice vertical and has a rewarding view from the top. In additional, it provides me with all trail and it is very wooded and feels more secluded. I ran up and had to stop to grab a few pictures of the view from the top.

It was neat to see some of the buildings up there too which were covered in graffiti. Along with the Radio antennas.

Given that on the downhill it got a bit technical but my road shoes held up fine. This was likely due to the dry ground and not much leaf cover.

Cobbs Hill

Once at the bottom of Pinnacle Hill, my next stop was Cobbs Hill. I like Cobbs Hill because it has a good balance of elevation, trail, and road. I ran up the dirt single track shown below and then through the Washington Grove where I saw the old water towers with all of the graffiti.

After running around Cobbs Hill I ran back to where I started and it was about 10 miles and about 850ft of elevation.

Final Thoughts

This run was a fun challenge to take on and I am looking forward to doing it again. Given the hybrid terrain it is a good balance of road and trail with a decent amount of vertical. The views from this run would be really nice in the fall, which may be a good time for me to do it again!