Category: Rivers, Streams, Creeks

Loopy III

There and Back Again

MichaelStephenWills8 Comments

Looping from the hinterland of Treman Park, I turned left on the Rim Trail, following the a one-way track in this time of coronavirus.

“Ithaca is Gorges” is a popular bumper sticker with locals and in this portion of the walk we glimpse the truth of the marketing. No sooner than I turn onto the Rim trail, a foursome approaches, two young couples, a baby in a front mounted carrier on a presumed father, the women talking continuously. I ducked into a handy viewing platform to maintain distance and wait 5 minutes or so until the breezes clear the air. The mask is in my pocket.

Click any photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.

All these photographs and video are from an IPhone 7, sent to my laptop via ICloud.

  • Turn Left, the trail is one-way
  • An alcove with a gorge view
“Ithaca is Gorges”

I am not the fastest walker and this portion of the trail, a steep incline with many large rocks, roots and tilting bridges over rills, demanded care. Still, no other hikers passed me.

  • A drunken bridge
  • I love this carved sign at the trail head.

  • COVID-19 mitigation plan at top
  • These small placards are placed strategically with X’s to mark your position.
Signs

Walking the parking lot I understood why, there were few cars and people. Still, I needed to head off the path into the parking lot to maintain distance. Why is it always I how move? Time for experimentation, but I don’t want to put on the mask.

  • Highlights of Treman Park
  • Half Mast
  • Closed for COVID-19. The Mill has excellent exhibits on what life was like back then.

Find this mysterious pathway to beyond next to the Old Mill. To be continued……

Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Loopy II

A difficult clamber.

MichaelStephenWills2 Comments

Hiking nowadays I seek out unfrequented spots, such as the Red Pine Trail. In yesterday’s post we started on a path that opened and changed with the building of a new footbridge over Fish Kill. Here we are on the other side.

Click any photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
  • Turn left after the bridge on this narrow footpath between Fish Kill and a steep hill, almost a cliff.
  • The path turns, up the hill in switchbacks crossing muddy patches. Difficult to find and follow.
  • At top is a pine forest and this view where Fish Kill undercuts the hill.
  • Enjoying the view.
  • This is the well marked Finger Lakes Trail into Treman Park.
  • I turn off the trail onto this service road I know intersects with the Rim Trail of Treman Park.

I meet no other hikers, though at the foot of the hill, where the path turns to climb, I pass a tent on a spot overlooking Fish Kill. This portion of the Finger Lakes Trail traverses the forested southern rim of Enfield Gorge (Treman Park) close to private lands, occasionally emerging for short distances on roads. It is the little known, and true, Rim Trail. The park’s named Rim Trail runs below on the side of the gorge.

Here is where the service road intersects with the Rim Trail, beyond the fence is a cliff dropping to Enfield Creek on an approach to the dramatic Lucifer Falls through the Devil’s Kitchen. With COVID-19 the park trails are one-way to reduce hiker interactions. The Rim Trail is one-way, up the gorge. I turn left.

To be continued…..

Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Loopy I

There and Back Again

MichaelStephenWills

Hiking nowadays I seek out unfrequented spots, such as the Red Pine Trail using the adage “a mile makes all the difference” to find peaceful corners even in popular New York State Parks. A turn onto Woodard Road finds an intersection with a Finger Lakes Trail. On one side heading away to woodlands and fields. The other side the same with the option of hitting Treman’s Rim Trail.

Click any photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
  • Phlox
  • Buttercups

Much of the infrastructure of our local parks were built in the 1930’s during the Depression, witnessed by this plaque. Substantial work is ongoing, such as a bridge over Fish Kill by the Finger Lakes Trail volunteers.

  • The new bridge changed my plans for today, previously Fish Kill was a barrier.
  • View from the new bridge

To be continued…..

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

On the Tain Way, repost

A place of myth and wonder on foot and approachable

MichaelStephenWills2 Comments

Click me to visit this Ireland post.

Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Native

Red Pine on the level

MichaelStephenWills6 Comments

Red Pine is a tree native to North America, yet it is called “Norway Pine” in Minnesota. Famously settled by Norsemen, the misnomer may originate with a sense of homesickness in these first settlers. The tall and straight trunks grace the trails of Treman Park, one trail is eponymous.

Click any photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
  • Perfect weather

I break away from household chores on a week day for exercise, arriving am impressed by the COVID-19 mitigation.

  • Six Foot Separation begins with parking

The new one-way trail rules, posted on the Rim Trail sign, means my planned route must change. Today’s COVID-19 strategy is to use the Red Pine trail, a very steep climb, a pine woods ramble, ending with descent to the Gorge Trail suitable for a mountain goat. The rules mean I cannot turn right on the Gorge Trail to form a loop. Instead commitment to the Gorge Trails means a 4 mile loop to the bottom of the park, returning on the Rim Trail. I decide to climb to the top and return.

I take an interesting detour on the way, visiting an archaeological site, fields of strongly scented wild roses, lush ferns.

  • Wild Rose fragrance filled the air
  • Wild Rose
  • Fern Bank at the Foot of Red Pine Trail

All these photographs and video are from an IPhone 7, sent to my laptop via ICloud.

I cross a nameless stream to the trail head, follow this stream uphill to where it cuts into the slope where the trail turns sharply and climbs into the pines.

  • Red Pine Trail Head
  • Towering Red Pine
  • A brief life, useful in death

Click me for better experience viewing the following video. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page. Note the replay icon (an arrow circling counter-clockwise.

Here is the experience from the ridge top. The sound of water is Enfield Creek rushing along the cliff face.

Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Late May, South Rim Trail

Dangerous Practices

MichaelStephenWills4 Comments

Today, I have a companion post to “A Summer Flower and Waterfalls” from a time of Coronavirus (COVID-19) from a walk cut short by inconsiderate people not following New York laws.

All photographs and videos are from an Apple IPhone 7.

Here is a long and close shot of Columbine Flowers thriving on the edge of a gorge cliff.

Click photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.

With a video of the movement of this wildflower against a backdrop of flowing water over a 100 feet below.

Click for better experience viewing the following videos. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.

A scan of the upper gorge with some marvelous clouds.

Continuing onto the forest trail I spotted this Jack-In-The-Pulpit. Here is a photograph and short video.

My walk this day was cut short by joggers, unmasked, on the narrow trail. For each I stepped off to put 6 feet between us. So inconsiderate and unnecessary, selfish.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

First Water Trailhead, repost

A desert garden with plans

MichaelStephenWills

….Click me to visit this post of the Sonora Desert in bloom.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Bullet Dodge Series 3

Not quite murmuration

MichaelStephenWills1 Comment

Today, enjoy two videos of shorebirds taking flight at once. Starlings can flock and swarm in clouds of birds, called murmuration. My videos of a shorebird colony taking fright, at something unknown as the beach was empty, are from my IPhone 7.

This is a still image, high resolution, similar to the view of the second video. A repeat from yesterday.

Click photograph for larger image. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.

With a tripod it is simpler to achieve a level horizon….

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III

December 3, 2014 President Obama warned of the coming pandemic and passed along plans and a team to the incoming Trump administration. By December 2019, the pandemic unleashed in China, Trump gutted this capability and, while Pam and I were planning out January 10th Walt Disney World trip, hid the truth from United States Citizens.

We were keeping an eye on China, by January 10th the Chinese communist government was lying, “there is no human-to-human” transmission they told the WHO (World Health Organization). Knowing the truth, our plans for that day would be different.

Click to open video in a new browser tab for better experience and also more information about the context.

Sunrise, January 109, 2020 Cocoa Beach, Florida

Click to open the next video in a new browser tab for better experience and also more information about the context.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

References:

CNN YouTube, “Hear what Barack Obama said in 2014 about pandemics.”

Daily KOS, “How the Obama administration tried to save us from what Trump is doing right now.”

FOX News, “WHO haunted by January tweet saying China found no human transmission of coronavirus.”

Beauty and Infection

Cutting Trees to Fight Disease in Glenariff Forest Park

MichaelStephenWills9 Comments

White Hawthorne tree blooms grace hedgerows of the rural hillside facing Glenariff Forest Park. The other white is grazing sheep. The North Channel of the Irish Sea is visible at the foot of the glen, with the shore of Scotland just visible.

Foreground are the stumps of mature trees cut by the forest service to control the oomycete plant pathogen Phytophthora ramorum. We visited June 2014, the year before, October 2013, the Belfast Telegraph reported “Northern Ireland is close to the point where it will be impossible to eradicate a virulent disease from the forests where it has taken hold.” Glenariff Forest part was one of those forests and the tree stumps are victims of that struggle.

Click photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.

Here is a link to this photograph on Getty.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Getting My Work Out There

A Blessed Easter to Everyone

MichaelStephenWills8 Comments

Comparing this view with the first of this series, first glance, with the camera held steady on a Manfrotto studio tripod, it is identical but from the play of light and cloud. My model Pam walked a few feet to sit in quiet contemplation of the beautiful surroundings.

To produce stock photography I research the details of the image, to write an informative caption. For example, in the post “Another Glenariff View” my identification of the Rowan was from a two volume atlas, paging through page after page.

Click photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.

Here is a link to my Glenariff photographs on Getty.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills