Lick Brook Falls (part 2)

[Part 1]

Standing next to the stream, we can’t tell how the other hikers made it across; there are a few rocks sticking up out of the water, but most are submerged under several inches of water – the very thing that has brought us to the falls (high water) is making it extra difficult to get to them. My hiking boots are waterproof, but only up to my laces. If the water’s higher than that, my feet will find themselves bathed in a swampy mixture of muddy water and sweat.

Eventually, we decide that the best way to cross the stream is to climb out onto a tree root that extends half a foot over the stream and leap to the bank on the other side. Yes, really. Once that’s accomplished, we (finally) find ourselves on the Lick Brook Falls trail. From there, it’s a leisurely stroll through sunlit forests as butterflies flutter through the flowers steep. Very steep. We pick our way up the incline and are rewarded by several waterfalls. The last part of the hike finally levels out a bit and we get to walk next to undeveloped gorge.

The Big One

At the end of the trail, we sign the trail register, letting future hikers know of our enviable pathfinding skills. Then we have to get back to Treman, so back down the slope we go. We each slip (no one falls) a couple times on the way down, and I can’t tell if it’s because of loose rock, decaying leaves, or just mud underfoot. Near the stream, we decide we have a little time to look for another waterfall, but don’t end up finding it. We see a snake near the Lick Brook Falls parking lot and my roommate stops to take pictures.

Smaller falls in the gorge

All of that becomes important, because back at Treman, I look at my watch. It’s getting very close to when the bus is supposed to pick us up, so we run back to the playground where the bus dropped us off. As we round the corner, we see the bus pull up to the stop. We start running faster. About thirty feet from the bus, we pause to get out our IDs to board. The bus pulls away from the stop.

My roommate and I look at each other. We contemplate calling someone to pick us up. We decide to walk the four miles to Wegmans, because after all, we still need groceries. Fortunately, route 13 has a nice wide shoulder, but it’s still not very pleasant, and we’re glad when we make it to the shopping area. Since we’re out there anyway, we stop by the Salvation Army store to see if they have any good jigsaw puzzles. We forget the Salvation Army store is closed on Sundays.

Continuing on our way to Wegmans, we pass an abandoned McDonald’s. It looks like something out of The Walking Dead. So does the railroad we passed earlier, actually. A little over an hour after being left by the bus at Treman, we walk into the Wegmans parking lot. The last bus from Wegman’s has left about ten minutes ago.

After our shopping is complete, we shoulder our bags for the next leg of our trip and walk to the Commons. We wait at the Green Street bus station for any buses heading to campus. I eat a peanut butter and jam sandwich. Finally, the 51 shows up. Its final destination is listed via Collegetown. When we make it back to Collegetown, I ask my roommate if she wants to take the stairs up to our apartment. She says no. We take the elevator and lie on the living room floor before peeling ourselves off to make dinner. Our other roommate later vacuums up the mud from the living room floor. I wouldn’t change a thing about our trip.

Lick Brook Falls (part 1)

This is a story that will be told out of order because if at all possible, it needs to be told in person. In the unlikely case that someone who needs to be told in person reads this blog, I waited to post about it. Here is the story, in its full glory, now.

If you’re like most students at Cornell who don’t have a car, you have one other thing in common: you have a TCAT fail story. One of the popular ones is taking the bus to Ithaca College instead of Cornell. Another is running up to the bus stop, making eye contact with the bus driver, and watching the bus pull away from the curb before your very eyes. Due to some stellar schedule reading, one of my friends got himself and a friend stuck at the mall one night. They had to call another friend to pick them up. A couple of my other friends ended up at the airport instead of the mall. They checked the schedule, figured out which bus they needed to take to get back en route, and waited. And waited, and waited. Finally, a bus pulled up. Wrong route number. The bus driver stopped and asked if they’d like to get on. They assured her that they’re waiting for another bus. The bus pulled away, and promptly changed its route number to the bus they’d been waiting for. They decided to walk (on the highway) to the mall. I contend that my (newest) story stands above the rest.

It starts on a Friday night in the apartment.

I’m in my room on the internet; from my desk I can see my roommate on her computer at the kitchen table. We’ve both been checking weather reports to decide what our adventure of the weekend is going to be. It’s going to rain all of Saturday, so we opt to go to the Museum of the Earth. Then my roommate mentions that the rain will clear up by Sunday. Lick Brook Falls is said to be best visited right after rain. Why don’t we go to Lick Brook on Sunday afternoon? Sure, I think. I’ve never been there before, and more waterfalls = more fun.

On Sunday, since we’ve spent Saturday at the Museum of the Earth and still need to get groceries for the upcoming week, we devise a bus schedule that will allow us to take the bus to Treman State Park, walk to and hike Lick Brook, catch the bus at Treman back to the Commons, walk from the Commons to Wegmans, and take the last bus from Wegmans back to Collegetown. A bit complicated, but doable.

No diving? . . . Aw . . .

The first part of the schedule goes according to plan and we take the 22 to Treman. We check out the falls by the swimming area, and water is thundering through. The swimming area is, understandably, closed. We sprint across the highway to walk over to the Lick Brook parking area and start the hike. The first part of the hike crosses a recently-flooded field and we follow a very muddy track. There’s one part where we cross a railway bridge, which is pretty cool.

How far to Terminus?

After the mud pits, we reach a wooded area and locate blazes going up a very steep hill. A couple of other hikers who look like they know what they’re doing are going in a different direction, but we decide to try the very steep hill. At the top, we can’t find any more blazes. Now we have to get down the very steep hill. Instead of falling hiking down the same way we came up, we bushwhack for awhile and make it back to the bottom, where we’re met by a stream. To be continued . . .

Blueberries

At the end of the summer, after a sad roommate-less week, my roommate for the school year moved in. Before she began her ten-meeting-a-day schedule, we went blueberry picking. Armed with various containers, we drove out to Grisamore Farms where we found that we were close to the only people there. Which was fine with me.

Soon after arrival, I made the discovery that farm blueberries are different from wild blueberries. I’ve picked wild blueberries in Maine before, and the bushes are short and low to the ground while the fruit itself is rather tiny – around 0.5 cm in diameter. Farm blueberries, on the other hand, are about twice that diameter (so volume scales up by 8) and the bushes are slightly taller than I am. Also, compared to the wild blueberries I picked, the berries we picked grew much denser on the bush. We stayed for about an hour and I picked between two and three pounds of blueberries in that time.

I ate my way through a good portion of the berries before I got around to baking with them. They were delicious, and now that we’re transitioning from pre-winter to winter in the northeast, I miss fruits that aren’t apples, pears, bananas, or oranges. (On the other hand, winter means cranberries, which means cranberry bread, which is also delicious.)

Anyway, I made the pie crust recipe that I usually use for apple pies and consulted Google to find a blueberry pie filling recipe, and made mini blueberry pies. Yes, also delicious, and yes, I like sweet food. Sometimes I eat dinner solely as the necessary precursor to dessert. I am currently accepting baked goods and quantities of small, unmarked bills at- Just kidding. Points to take away from this post: I went blueberry picking. I ate blueberries. I made blueberry pie. I ate blueberry pie. Send me baked goods.

Lab of Ornithology

Abandoned by my roommate who chose to go home to see her family rather than stay in Ithaca with me* while I finished research (and started grad school applications . . . what happened to cause that is a whole other story), I had to come up with my own trouble to get into. After some thought, I decided on biking to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, only 4.5 miles from Collegetown. Pocket change for any semi-serious halfway-competent biker, a significant distance for a culture that fights for the parking lots closest to the grocery store, just right for me.

Of course, being Ithaca, the way there was almost entirely uphill. There were enough flat spots along the way to make it bearable, but just barely. First I had to bike up a hill from Collegetown to get to campus. On campus, I had to bike up a hill from the engineering quad to North campus. From North campus, I had to bike up a hill to get off campus. After biking through a golf course, I turned left and had to bike up another hill. That hill led to another hill, which led to the last hill, and then I was at the Lab of Ornithology. I don’t think the overall grade was too bad, but you try biking uphill for forty minutes straight and tell me how your legs like it.

Biking was a very popular option this morning

I wasn’t really at the Lab of Ornithology to go birdwatching, because I can recognize maybe a half dozen different birds, but I wanted to take a look around at their trails and if I saw any birds, great. If not, I got a bike ride and a walk/hike for my troubles. I picked up a map and headed out on the paths. I planned to walk a couple loops that would take me around two sections of Sapsucker Woods and let me walk part of each trail.

In the end, I spent a couple hours wandering around the woods. It was pretty quiet, and not many other people were there, which was probably a good thing for birdwatching. I did end up seeing a few birds – a couple woodpeckers, some ducks, a robin, and the most rare find of all, shown below.

A rare find: the chinstrap penguin outside of its natural habitat

I also heard a lot of different birds, none of which I could identify by their calls. It was still a worthwhile experience, though I would like to go back for a birdwatching walk hosted by the Lab of Ornithology. They’re on the weekends, which isn’t a problem, but they start at 7:30 am, which might be . . .

*That was probably a good choice.