Into the Woods

June 21 was a Black Fly day at Tahquamenon Falls in 2003. This very pretty pond justified the hike, though, and we were back (minus the flies) a few weeks later to explore further down the trail. Camera: Nikon N90s

Joan said: "There's a deer." Yup.

Clifftop, West Virginia

Camera: Olympus Camedia C50

The Tahquamenon has two falls--the great Upper Falls , and the less impressive, but very lovely, Lower Falls which are several miles downriver. The lower falls are actually a series of cascades on two sides of an island. This view of the lower falls area, which appears to be deliberately framed for folks leaving the visitor center, captures the charms of the place well.

Glade Creek Mill at West Virginia's Babcock State Park, shortly after a heavy downpour in July of 1997. =================== Had a couple reminders of this place today: * A friend has a photo of the mill on her PC. I told her I visit there regularly, and that Joan and I will be staying in one of Babcock's cabins in a few weeks. Sue was surprised; wanted to know more about the mill, and the park. * And today's mail contained a flyer from Mountain River Adventures, featuring a Special Offer if we book our rafting trip before June 30: Free gas! One gallon of free gas. One gallon. Wow.

Explored! #86 on Flickr on Saturday, July 14, 2007. Thanks! One of Michigan's treasures.. If you take M-28 across the Upper Peninsula, there's a long stretch of road along the edge of the Seney Wildlife Refuge. In the sixties, when I first vacationed in the UP, the trees were all scrubs, and quite frankly it was an ugly road, a super-straight highway through nowhere. Getting off the road to see the scenery just didn't seem like a worthwhile activity; better to hurry on to Tahquamenon, or Munising, or points west. We didn't know any better. On a June day in 2002, Joan and I found these fine skies, a handful of Sandhill Cranes, and many smaller birds. And an Osprey, patrolling low over one of the pretty pools. A final note: Forty years later, the trees have matured and M-28, though still generally judged to be dull, is far more interesting. There's still little clue about these nearby delights, though. Camera: Nikon N90s

We're back! And here's where we were. On Sunday, we parked the car at Foley Creek campground and hiked to Horseshoe Bay, on Lake Huron, where we spent the afternoon sitting on the beach and reading. Unfortunately my photograph just hints at the riot of colors in the water--shades from near-black, through redish-brown and turquoise, on toward indigo. A beautiful, relaxing, wonderful day. That's Mackinac Island off toward the right, and Bois Blanc (Bob-Lo) behind it.

Horseshoe Bay trail, Foley Creek campground, near St. Ignace, Michigan.

The New River Gorge has dozens of ghost towns.... Down below New River Bridge is a reasonably easy trail to the ruin of the Kaymoor mine. Properly speaking, this is not the Kaymoor ghost town; these are the buildings at the entrance to Kaymoor One. This mine closed in 1962, and the buildings have been neglected for four decades. The mine was about two thirds of the way up a thousand-foot hill. Most of the miners lived above the mine at Kaymoor Top, which is still inhabited, or below at Kaymoor Bottom. Besides housing for miners, Kaymoor Bottom had the rail connection to the outside world, and featured a battery of coke ovens for much of the mine's history. This town was abandoned more or less with the mine. There's a stair from the mine to Kaymoor Bottom, but Joan and I weren't up to the 800 steps.... The road below New River Bridge was once the sole roadway which crossed the gorge. It's a skinny, twisty, scenic path down the valley wall, across the bridge at Fayette Station, then back up the other side, crossing back and forth under the bridge in a series of switchbacks. Very scenic, but pretty intimidating.

This is Cabin 10 at West Virginia's Babcock State Park. It's pretty much like Cabin 3, where we stayed, like these folks , in 2001--except it has fewer steps (38, by my count). Both cabins are above Glade Creek, though on opposite sides of the valley; 10 is past the mill, then down the hill on the Old Sewell Road. As you can see, the cabin's stairway's been rebuilt this season; we've also got new pots and pans and are feeling a little spoilt.... Photo taken Monday evening. Old Sewell Road used to run five miles or so to the site of Sewell on the C&O line along the New River. The road was originally the "main line" for the narrow gauge Mann's Creek Railway, then was converted to a narrow and precarious automobile road when the rails were pulled in the fifties. It's recently become impassible by car; Joan and I hiked a mile or two on Tuesday morning and discovered two washouts that the park isn't planning to fix. (The second wash is pretty spectacular, and if my good camera got any decent shots you'll see them.) A foot and bicycle trail, now, and pretty inconvenient on a bike. Babcock State Park was a gift to West Virginia from Babcock Coal and Coke, an operation which ran coal mines at Clifftop and a lumbering operation headquartered at Landisburg. The first purpose of the rail line was to get coal down the hill, but the same road was a traditional lumbering railroad with all the fixings--Shay-type locomotives, lightweight track, even a sharply curved trestle. When they closed down the line around the end of 1954, Mann's Creek got a flurry of publicity in the railfan press; the last train run on the line, on May 30, 1955, was the road's first fan trip. Today's been quite wet--really serious rain for six or eight hours. Glade Creek's running wild in the channel tonight, which looks spectacular and sounds quite impressive. (Originally a blog post written in July of 2004.)