Tainted Snow (SWF)

Limestone cliffs of Clifty Falls State Park,
in snow and icicles

Perhaps even more than in other seasons, winter brings wanderlust upon us.
Long days of work, and fleeting hours of daylight wrapped around them, leave little time to get out and about. We use our weekend days to explore beyond our boundaries and burn the pent up energy that becomes the worst symptom of cabin fever.
And, as always, find we gain much more, than physical exercise alone.


Clifty Falls State Park in Madison, Indiana is perched on the bank of the Ohio River, just over the border from Ohio, and a short drive from Cincinnati. The steep shale and limestone cliffs lining this small canyon are seen easily through the bare trees of winter, and are woven with miles of rugged stone trails traversing the plunging slopes. Frozen waterfalls and the icy formations that grow beneath them, as the small feeder creeks make their way to the Ohio River, add to the winter experience here, not found at any other time of year.

Ice Balls beneath the Falls

We arrived later than hoped, driving headlong into an unexpected snowstorm moving up the Ohio River Valley and seriously slowing our drive along the windy, rural roads. So, with limited time to explore, we drove straight to the Inn for that hiking essential, the trail map.
I happily caught lacy snowflakes on the back of my black mitten, stretching my legs from the 2-hour ride.
Towering behind the charming brick façade of the Inn, three monstrous stacks from below, billowing smoke into a cold, snowy winter sky.

Clifty Inn,
Power plant stacks behind

Setting each foot deliberately between the whitened, slippery surfaces, we slowly descended into the gorge, finally reaching the small Hoffman’s Branch in the base, where it meets Clifty Creek.

Ice on Hoffman Branch

Snow at water's edge

Swallowed by steep walls all around, it would be easy to forget yourself here,
hopping stone to stone,
wandering the creek bed as it winds its way deeper, toward the Clifty Falls.


The trail, now almost completely covered with these lovely little flakes, took us up again, along a hillside where the fallen logs accented in white stood out plainly against the brown leaves covering the slopes.


And stacks of limestone, barely releasing a trickle, were held fast by slender trees, roots reaching around them.
Frozen rivulets covering their sides.

Snow-dusted Icicles on face of limestone

Catching our breath, we turned and found it, there, again, in the distance.
Smoke stacks spilling into the air.
And the snow fell all around.

Power plant stacks beyond hillside

Perhaps, easier to recognize at this time of year, more than others, in the lovely white covering that blankets these woods and hangs on crystal drips from its faces, what is other times invisible here.
From the stacks of the coal-fired power plants, its smoke and everything in it, caught by each little lacy flake, and brought to rest on the earth.

Snow-covered Trail #4,
Clifty Falls State Park, Madison Indiana

Power plant at Ghent, KY

Some of the highest concentrations of atmospheric mercury in the nation are found in the rain and snow that fall over Clifty Falls State Park from the towers of coal-fired power plants along the Ohio River in Kentucky and Indiana.

The combustion of fossil fuels, especially coal, releases elemental mercury to the atmosphere. Once released into the environment, the most toxic form of mercury, methylmercury, is formed and can be passed up the food chain to humans.
For more information, please look here.

Tainted Snow

See more Skywatch here.

All Alone

Empty Trails
Cincinnati Nature Center

The Frozen Falls on Avey's Run

It accentuates the absence of all else—the sound of a drip into water, round and clean, against the backdrop of stillness. While, throughout the darkened house, all other activities pause.
The silence then, so great, that it becomes, instead of absence, its own presence—a tangible thing.
Rarely unspoiled.

I ventured out into Friday’s frigid air and roamed the trails, alone. For these woods, so loved by so many on any other day, today, were barren.
And, beneath hat and hood, the stillness, very strange.

Several times I stopped and stood, puffing warm air into cupped hands and letting it rise to wash my face in steamy clouds. And found myself dressed in frosty lashes, squinting against the brightness of a cloudless January sky.

Watching Deer

In the distance, the call of a Barred Owl, this wintry day, his. And I imagined him fluffed against the cold somewhere, hidden against the brown and white of densely crossed winter branches, still.
While deer, frozen forms on a sheltered hillside, watched me pass.

Winter Light on Avey's Run

I hopped across the crossing stones frozen in the thick white stillness of the creek bed of Avey’s Run, the low light casting long shadows onto the steep hillsides on either side. All alone in the depths of these woods, I knelt in the middle on the cold and slippery surface. The waters that roar here each spring, now still.
To listen to the silence of the winter woods.
Drip, drip, dripping beneath me.

Ice

The Sounds of Silence

Trail at Caesar Creek State Nature Preserve

Mid-day, but barely bright.
The woods so cast in gloom,
several times I caught myself feeling we should hurry to beat sunset,
though its time still hours away.
In and out through dense stands of cedar,
this new trail so lovely, yet in this daylight, eerie--
dusted in the faintest light snow.

Sycamore roots at Creek's edge

And, all along the water’s edge,
where slender, young sycamores stand,
feet reaching the water,
we followed it in silence,
seemingly alone in the woods on this cold wintry day.
As if stepping into the hush that falls like a curtain,
as the shadow of a hawk spreads out across the ground,
it seemed the skies were empty.
The woods and waters, too.

Snow on Beaver work at Caesar Creek

All we saw were their snowy footprints, left ahead of us on the trail.
Not a sound to betray their presence.
The woods knew the hunters were there.


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The Perfect Storm (SWF)

Flakes Falling

Yesterday brought the perfect quiet of a snow.
Quiet, for the immediate response of so many to retreat indoors and leave our usually busy world much less so.
And perfect in the fact that getting out into it was, on this day, my choice.

So, stepping out from beneath warm covers, into my favorite wool socks, I gathered my things—which no longer fit easily into one sack, but three! And set off for a day at the Nature Center—laptop, camera, binoculars, cell phone, water bottle and a hurriedly packed lunch piled beside me on the seat. Hiking boots, hints of both mittens and gloves protruding from the side pockets of a large, dark jacket, and a knit hat, carefully chosen to be large enough to hide a small cat, but, on this day, just an unruly ponytail, added to the picture of one arriving and intending to stay for more than just a few hours.
This would be my place for the day.

For the better part of it, I, too, stayed warm and working—at a small table in a windowed room, while a smoky fire reluctantly gave way to flames and soft, plinking music drifted in from the gift shop next door. But after taming my mid-day appetite with a peanut butter sandwich and a darling Clementine, I gathered my gear, resituated it on the seat of the car and wrapped myself for the cold.



The trails so often filled with walkers, were empty. The lake, steel gray, with six ducks near the shore. Through the trees, the path wound and rolled past empty benches, filled on warmer days.
And I pushed faster, hoping warmth would find its way to my chilling fingertips.



In the field beyond, the little log house so out of time with all else, on this day seemed timeless. In the openness, flakes poured down from a white sky above and swirled into gray haze before resting on the grasses. In the center of it all, I stood and looked up into the stream. And wondered if this quiet, this solitude we avoid, the times when all life’s distractions are left on the seat of our cars, isn’t the perfect balm for a 21st century life.

Autumn Field Grasses

Field under Snow

See more Skywatch here.

Inside the Hoh Rain Forest

I've been saving the best for last.
Or, more honestly, putting off an attempt to describe a place I cannot find words for.
A place that is felt from the inside, out—sensed, more than merely seen.

A place with which, though printed images and words abound, the first real encounter steals your breath--
and leaves awe where imagination had been.
I’ve been waiting for words to find me.

As if closing a door to the rest of the world, the space within is quiet--
with a stillness that aches in your ears.
And sounds of great time’s passing.
The dense ground drinks all in,
hushed by centuries’ collection of needles.
Mosses woven together.
The rich tapestry rolled, unending, from one end of this evergreen forest to the other.

Softly shaded by curtains, rich tones of gold and green,
the only scattered spots of light, small gaps at the extreme reach of the treetops, 250 feet above.
As with light cast through the small stained-glass windows of a cathedral,
the eye is drawn upward into vastness.
Each trunk, tall and straight, many with bare branches below,
only distinguishable from each other by the textures of their bark,
or shape of their broadly reaching roots.
Many wide with age,
others barely born.

The tallest trees, their roots broad but shallow,
fed by the abundant rains of almost 150 inches each year, easily toppled—
yield life to the next generation.
Mounds of ferns cascade from pockets of dark soil held between the roots of the large fallen giants.
Each rootwad, a wall quickly filled
by the small plants eagerly nosing their way into the smallest vulnerable crevice.

Mosses crawl, in greens of a million descriptions,
to cover the long fallen trunks, their spreading fingers in textures furry and soft, jagged and spiky.
The seeds caught beneath them from the trees above, seeking shelter in the deeply furrowed bark. Establishing their beginnings upon the fallen giant, then buttressing themselves against time, anchoring beyond to the forest floor.
Until in long rows they stand, colonnades clearly recounting this history,
towering reverently over the crumbling forms having given them life,
years before.

A narrow path winds on,
between the massive rootwads,
spanning pools of dark water.
Heavy slabs of cedar, a footpath protecting sacred ground.
Beyond the tops of sword fern, the forest unfolds,
interrupted only by sheets of hanging moss draped majestically from the otherwise barren branches.
Foxglove and clusters of horsetail fill the occasional sunlit spot.

To stand within such a place,
be lifted high by the roots of a thousand-year trees,
as they brace themselves on the shore of the sea.
To look up at the sky through their branches, and behold--
golden wings!
This is the Hoh Rain Forest.

This 48-slide presentation includes:
Bigleaf Maple, Acer macrophyllum
Deer Fern, Blechnum spicant
Douglas Fir, Pseudotsuga menzieseii
Foxglove, Digitalis purpurea
Horsetail, Equisetum arvense
Maidenhair Fern, Adiantum sp.
Methuselah's Beard, Usnea longissima
Red Huckleberry, Vaccinium parvifolium
Sitka Spruce, Picea sitchensis
Sword Fern, Polystichum munitum
Trefoil Foamflower, Tiarella trifoliata
Vine Maple, Acer circinatum
Western Hemlock, Tsuga heterophylla
Western Redcedar, Thuja plicata

To view static, labeled images, visit my Flickr site.

Olympic National Park--This Place is WILD!

Sign posted at trailhead

I’ve discovered an effective strategy for overcoming my fear of bears.
Settle in for a week of hiking--in cougar country—complete with details of how to avoid, or, if faced with an encounter, stare one down and escape with your life, posted plainly at every trailhead.
A repeated reminder throughout the Park, for those who might have it slip their mind.

Chances are, I’d never encounter one.
But with 300 cougars within the national park boundaries, I read each instruction sheet and studied it well, then picked up my stick and stepped into their world.

Every scrubby cluster became a point from which one could suddenly leap.
Every dark lump, a crouching form.
Hiking no longer was a mindless trek, but an exercise, carefully plotted and executed.
We must keep an eye on the sun--these deep woods lose light quickly.
Stumbling along a dusky trail would be definitely out of the question.

Having just stepped off a plane from Ohio days earlier, made this new place all the more disconcerting. As if suddenly waking from sleep to find the room rearranged, nothing looked the least bit familiar.

Within the deep, dark woods of Olympic, mostly silence. An expansive, lavishly carpeted space with cathedral ceilings opening to spots of bright blue above.

Arion sp. (?)

Snail-eating Beetles eating a worm
Scaphinotus angusticollis olympiae
of Pacific coastal forests

Along the paths we walked, huge slugs.
And their predators, flightless Snail-Eating ground beetles scurrying to and fro, hoping to catch one, or a snail or other slimy, spineless creature that lives in the dark of these woods.

Douglas squirrel, Tamiasciurus douglasii
of Pacific coastal states
eating Sitka Spruce cone

Douglas squirrels, small and noisy, munching cones of odd shapes and sizes.

The evergreens, of course, were huge--and enough like similar species to hazard a guess. But, there were maples--with leaves the size of dinner plates.

Devils Club, Oplopanax horridus

And a low, lanky, creeping shrub, its ferocious spines hiding coyly behind bunches of lovely red berries—and even larger leaves.
Devil’s Club—nothing a hiker wishes to get into a tangle with.

hot springs of Sol Duc Valley

Sulfur hot springs were covered in a morning’s mist. Their aroma less than inviting—yet, after a day’s journeying, a warm welcome home. Nature’s hot tub, clean and clear. A constant renewal from below the earth’s surface.

coast between Clallum Bay and Sekiu

wild blackberries

One afternoon, a barrier of hefty blackberry shoots teased us from the road’s edge with large and luscious ripe fruit as we stopped to watch the tide slip from dark-covered rocks at the coast. We stole all we could of the bright, dark berries, and filled a hat to the brim—a snack to carry us through.



The table for lunch, reminding us again of this wonderful wildness we had landed in.

Rock Crab
Wilderness Beach Trail connecting Alava and Sand Point

Second Beach
Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, Washington

A place where the sand on the beach bears only your footsteps.
And those that follow, are of another world.

Posted in Camera Critters!