Hunters Creek County Park ~ East Aurora, NY

Nestled within the serene surroundings of nature, Hunters Creek County Park, also known as Sgt. Mark A. Rademacher Memorial Park, offers a tranquil retreat from the hectic pace of everyday life. With its sprawling network of trails, picturesque waterfalls, and breathtaking natural scenery, this park provides an idyllic setting for those seeking to immerse themselves in the beauty of the great outdoors.

Activities Allowed: Hiking, Horseback Riding, Snowshoeing, Cross Country Skiing, Fishing, & Cycling

Dog’s Permitted: Yes (Leashed)

Hiking Trails

Miles of trails: 20+ miles

If you’re searching for a fantastic hike, this park is the perfect destination! This massive park has over 20 miles of trails and offers plenty of options for outdoor enthusiasts. However, it’s important to note that the park can be challenging to navigate due to its vast number of trails, layout, and sparse trail markers on certain trails. But don’t let that turn you away; it’s gorgeous here!

The park is broken up into two sections, bisected by Hunters Creek.

East Side of Hunters Creek

The majority of the trails are on the East Side of Hunters Creek. The creek has branches that flow off into the park, and many of the trails run alongside it.

There are 3 trailheads that lead out of the parking area. The first 1/4 miles of each trail are very narrow and hedged on both sides, especially the Brown Trail (on the far right of the parking area) where there tons of low hanging branches across the trail, and you have to duck under them. On the upside the one side of the trail was lined with raspberry bushes, and they were ripe, so we had a little trail snack.

Eventually the paths will open up into wider areas, and for the most part the trails are wide and you can easily step off the path to yield to another hiker, cyclist, or horseback rider.

West Side of Hunters Creek

Although there are fewer trails in this section, this section of the park offers the only access to the Mossy Point Preserve. The two parks butt up against each other and the trailhead can only be reached through Hunters Creek. (We have not visited this section of the park, we will update this when we do.)

Hunters Creek & Waterfalls

If you want to explore Hunters Creek, take the Red Trail, which runs alongside the creek with numerous smaller trails leading down to the water. This was my favorite part of our hike. We were able to walk in the creek, which, at the point we entered, was more or less flat. The creek is truly beautiful, and there were places where tons of dragonflies circled us as we walked.

At one point, we found that someone had created a little gnome village in the rock walls surrounding the creek.

There are several waterfalls throughout the park. We weren’t able to see all of them on this trip, but we found one in Hunters Creek, and it was magnificent. It’s not a huge waterfall but more of a long staircase type, surrounded by rock ledges and tree roots, but the setting made it exquisite.

If you take some of the other trails, you will see some other smaller waterfalls in the smaller creek branching. There is a Spring Falls Trail at Hunters Creek. we didn’t take that trail on our visit because so many people were going that way. We plan on going back to see if there is indeed a waterfall there that inspired the name. However, the way the carves through the ravine, it’s easy to imagine that after a good rain, there are little waterfalls up and down the creek.

Out and About with Nova

Nova loves any adventure that involves water, so Hunters Creek was a lot of fun for her. We were a little nervous about how narrow the trailheads were, so we decided to take the less used one, figuring our chances of running into someone were slimmer.

Dogs must be leashed at Hunters Creek, and with good reason. The trailheads are extremely narrow, and should you walk up upon another hiker with a dog, cyclist, or horseback rider, you have to be able to move quickly and, therefore, have complete control over your dog. They are so serious about leashing your dogs that they had leashes at the entrance to one of the trails.

Please remember to clean up after your pet, and of course, take it with you.