May Nature Walk

Our first post COVID outing

MichaelStephenWills

Pam and I headed out to Treman Park for a walk to the Lucifer Falls overlook. The Gorge Trail is not yet open due to the danger of rock falling from the gorge walls — the park maintenance staff needs to survey winter damage and knock down material in danger of falling.

Our first stop was the mill waterfall. This was was directed to the mill stream to power the mill where grain was ground to order.

Here is an overview of the Mill, now a museum not yet opened post-Covid. The millstone stands at the start of the foot trails. All media on this post is from my IPhone 7, lightweight equipment for this hike. The automatic upload to ICloud is convenient.

Round trip is four-plus miles, with several hundred feet elevation change. Pam and I discussed a car caravan for our next visit, to support a one-way downhill hike (still plenty of uphill hiking). We need to work up to the round trip after our winter inactivity.

Trillium are in bloom!!

Multiple overlooks into the gorge grace this trail.

More trillium before we reached the overlook. Lucifer falls and the incredible path etched into the cliff by the Civilian Conservation Corps (Roosevelt’s Tree Army during the Depression).

After the Lucifer Falls overlook is this stupendous view from the top of the Cliff Stairs, 224 steps continue to link to the Gorge and South Rim trails.

As we lingered on the top steps the flowering plants slowly revealed themselves.

I captured this tragic image on the return trip….a trillium discarded on the trail. Stiff fines await anyone caught doing this.

Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

11 thoughts on “May Nature Walk”

  2. I like to walk here with you. Nature is impressively beautiful. Also nice that the sun is there. It has been raining here for almost a month. The temperature is low and it is cold. We look forward to beautiful days, just like in your beautiful photos.

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  3. It surprises me that this was your first post-COVID outing, given that in 2020 nature was both a safe and enjoyable place to spend time. What kept you from venturing out to local nature places until now? Your pictures remind me so well of our visit to Treman State Park in the summer of 2019, when nobody imagined what would befall us all the following year.

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    1. We hiked Treman Summer 2020 and the close encounters were so concerning it ruined it for the duration. The park has a “one-way” policy that people did not follow. Runners without masks. Close to home was beautiful enough.

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      1. In retrospect, the truth seems to be that brief close encounters of the maskless kind outdoors presented almost no risk at all, but most of us were hyper-cautious, especially those like you and me of a certain age.

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