Welcome Distraction
The Red Trail makes a turn up a slope of 10,000 year old glacial till. Here a side trail leads to a woodland waterfall.
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.
There and Back Again
Still photography does not do justice to the Phlox meadow of yesterday’s posting. Here is another presentation including the sights and sounds. Smello-vision does not yet exist.
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.
A Cayuga Trails Presentation
Cayuga, the name of the Iroquois tribe of this area, the name of our Finger Lake, an average of 1.7 miles wide, the longest at 40 miles. Fans of the “Twilight Zone” remember Rod Sterling’s Cayuga Productions named for a family lake house, from his maternal grandmother, on the west side of the lake.
Here we continue this Sunday loop hike, taking this stairway hidden next to the Old Mill. Thanks to the Cayuga Trails club the trail is marked and maintained.
A meadow next to Fish Kills is filled with Phlox.
A path through heaven.
There and Back Again
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.
All these photographs and video are from an IPhone 7, sent to my laptop via ICloud.
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.
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.
Find this mysterious pathway to beyond next to the Old Mill. To be continued……
A difficult clamber.
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.
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.
There and Back Again
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.
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.
Red Pine on the level
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.
I break away from household chores on a week day for exercise, arriving am impressed by the COVID-19 mitigation.
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.
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.
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.
Not quite murmuration
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….
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.
Shroomed (Happy May Day)
One week before January 10, the dawning of the day photographed here, “the CDC Director Robert Redfield was notified by a counterpart in China that a “mysterious respiratory illness was spreading in Wuhan [China]”. Redfield notified HHS Secretary Alex Azar shortly thereafter, who shared his report with the National Security Council (NSC). According to The Washington Post, warnings about the virus were included in the President’s Daily Brief in early January, an indicator of the emphasis placed on the virus by the intelligence community.” December( and maybe October/November), 2019 through January, 2020: COVID-19 was spreading across the USA as visitors from Wuhan disembarked from planes.
The following images compare IPhone 7 to a dslr mounted on a tripod.
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….
I heard the word “shroomed” (as a verb) used in Episode 1, Season 6, of Bosch. As in “the Federal Government treats us like mushooms”: grown in excrement and kept in the dark.
Click to open video in a new browser tab for better experience.
Want to see more? Click me to visit my Florida photography on Getty IStock.
First of a looooonnnngggg series
One day after my “Sunrise Texture” series as the sun rose on Cocoa Beach I was waiting with the same photographic kit. It was perfect weather for a visit to Walt Disney World, planned for that day: unsettled.
This image couple demonstrates the effect of long / short exposure without using filters. I changed the ISO and F-stop to achieve these effects.
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….
I turned around to observe the colonies of shore birds…..
Click to open video in a new browser tab for better experience.
Want to see more? Visit this my “Sunrise Textures” series on Getty IStock.
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 