Lime Hollow’s mission is to provide year-round environmental education and recreation opportunities through the utilization and protection of the natural and cultural attributes of the Lime Hollow area.

  • Recreation

    Our trails are free and open to the public dawn-to-dusk. We maintain 13 miles of trails which traverse a great variety of habitats. No matter the season, there is something to do on the trails at Lime Hollow! Hike, snowshoe, cross-country ski, or snowmobile. We even have a Trail for All, an accesible trail for people with all abilities.

  • Education

    At Lime Hollow, we engage kids 6 months to 103 years old! Programs include Forest Babies, Forest Preschool, Summer and School-Break Camps, Homeschool programs, school field trips, and public programs including a monthly natural and cultural history series.

  • Conservation

    Lime Hollow encompasses nearly 594 acres of beautiful rolling hills and shallow glacial valleys (kame-and-kettle topography), forests, fields, streams, numerous ponds, including many marl ponds and vernal (seasonal) pools, a peat bog, and a great diversity of flora and fauna.

A Brief History of Lime Hollow

The Lime Hollow Nature Center was founded in 1993, the culmination of efforts 20 years earlier to develop a nature preserve to protect an unusual assemblage of marl ponds, a peat bog, and kame-and-kettle topography along an abandoned railroad right of way in Lime Hollow, just west of the city of Cortland, NY.

Through a renewable use agreement, Lime Hollow began by utilizing 100 acres of land and two buildings belonging to the Tunison Laboratory of Aquatic Science of the US Geological Survey Department. Lime Hollow purchased an additional 190 acres adjoining the Tunison property in 1998, partly funded with a grant from the NYS Clean Air/Clean Water Bond Act. The area included a four-acre pond, beaver pond, old fields, and woodlands.

Lime Hollow opened a Visitor Center facility located on McLean Road in May 2007. The new Visitor Center boasts a stunning central exhibit space, a bird education room, several modular educational displays, gift-shop, staff offices, and numerous green building features including solar panels, composting toilets, and gray water systems.

In 2012 Lime Hollow purchased the 31 acre Osbeck Conservation Area, a woodland and wetland parcel that leads to Chicago Bog. The Nature Conservancy deeded 15 acres of woodlands bordering the bog to Lime Hollow. In 2015, thanks to a generous donation of a 5 acre parcel on Gracie Pond by Bestway Lumber and a strong partnership with OCM BOCES, Lime Hollow added a state of the art net-zero energy Environmental Education Center to its holdings. Repurposed old lumber mill structures became Camp Gustafson and now houses part of the summer camp program.

Lime Hollow maintains a nearby three-mile walking trail along the old Lehigh Valley railroad right of way and a 16-acre parcel containing a marl pond, owned by Cortland County.

Lime Hollow is listed as one of the NYS DEC’s Watchable Wildlife sites and was added to the 2016 NYS DEC Open Space Plan for protection and preservation purposes.