Winter Solstice Walk

Kali on the rail-trail through my preserve approaching a rock cut

After a really cold week, temperatures moderated yesterday.  So, I took an hour's comp time in mid-afternoon to walk in my preserve with Kali (who retired in October and is, thus, available for a walk on a moment's notice).

I wanted to get outside to enjoy the blue skies, the stark woodlands, and the low-angled sunlight.

American beech-dominated woodland slope

At the base of the the slope pictured above, a small spring-fed brook wanders through mucky bottomlands (below).

Years ago, someone planted two cypress trees on the edge of the brook.  Though they're outside their natural range (closest natural occurrence is in southern Delaware, about 50 miles south), the trees have survived and grown well.  They even sport their characteristic knees.

Cypress knees

The rock cut from the first image; I like this abstract play of angles, sunlight and shadows

Large boulder in the shady woods

A Century Later: Snowy Serenity

My county is creating a recreational trail on the unused rail line running through the middle of my preserve.  Full completion is scheduled for late summer 2015, but significant portions of the trail are in place and in use.

Kali and I have already developed a favorite loop hike that incorporates a section of county trail and the trails in my preserve.  We've walked it quite a few times.

Last Saturday was crystal clear but cold.  I suggested that we walk the loop, but Kali demurred because of the low temperatures.  So, I went out alone with my camera.  After I took the single image above, the camera's battery was fully discharged and I couldn't take any more images.  (Don't you hate when that happens?)

Sunday was warmer by about 15 degrees, but the sky was overcast.  Nevertheless, Kali agreed to walk the loop.  So, I took the same image in a horizontal orientation on Sunday.

This rock cut along the rail line right-of-way is of significance because this cut was the site of a horrific train accident on December 5, 1921.  Two passenger trains traveling in opposite directions collided head-on and the passenger cars caught fire.  Many passengers were injured and 16 were killed.  This accident was the "straw that broke the camel's back" with regard to wooden passenger cars; they were banned soon afterward.

Below are two historic images of the accident in the rock cut, which is now known as Death Gulch. 

Winter Urban Hike

 

Although the weekend was very pleasant (clear, blue skies with temperatures in the mid-50s), the accumulated snow has by no means disappeared.  There's still a foot or more covering most unpaved, uncleared surfaces, and walking is extraordinarily difficult.  On Saturday, Kali and I walked at a state park with paved bicycle trails that had been plowed and were clear and dry, but unpaved, untreated trails were still snow-covered and icy.  So, we thought about other options for a long walk on Sunday and decided to tackle an 8-mile loop in Philadelphia.

The Schuylkill River (a bit of a redundancy, since the Dutch word Schuylkill means "hidden river," a name stemming from the fact the mouth of the river at the receiving stream [i.e., the Delaware River] was obscured by dense reed beds) forms the western edge of central Philadelphia.  The river flows within a large urban park created in the 19th century to protect water quality in a river that served as the source of the city's drinking water.  Today, roads parallel the river along both sides, but between the roads and the river runs a paved recreational trail that is very popular with walkers, runners, skaters, and bicyclists.  Because it was paved and had been plowed, the trail was clear and mostly dry, so Kali and I decided to walk from the north end on the western bank toward central Philadelphia, cross the river, walk back along eastern bank, and then cross the river again to our car - a total distance of 8 miles.

The image at the head of the post shows our approach to the southern end of the walk, nearing central Philadelphia.  The skyscrapers of Center City are at the right.  The large neo-Classical building on the left is the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  In the left foreground, along the river, are the clubhouses of the rowing clubs that use this stretch of the river for competitive training; this cluster of eccentric buildings is known as "Boathouse Row."  One of the clubs' teams is on the river in the right of the image.

Kali along the Schuylkill River esplanade

In the image above, Kali is standing at the rail above the Fairmount Dam, constructed to back up the river so that water could be withdrawn as a source of drinking water.  Behind Kali on the opposite bank of the river sits the Fairmount Water Works, completed in 1812.  The Water Works withdrew water from the river and pumped it to a reservoir on the hill above (Fair Mount), from which it was distributed throughout the city by gravity flow.  The Philadelphia Museum of Art now occupies the location of the reservoir.  The Water Works buildings have been rehabilitated and serve as an interpretive center for the city's water department.   

Fairmount Water Works and the Museum of Art

The Fairmount Dam also marks the head of tide in the Schuylkill River.  Downstream of this point, the Delaware River (and its tributary, the Schuylkill River) are tidal.  The image above was made at low tide, so some of the metamorphic rocks of the Piedmont are visible in the riverbed.  A very short distance downstream, the river crosses over onto the sandy Coastal Plain.

View northward across the top of the Water Works to Boathouse Row

The large house on the hill on the upper right of the image above is called Lemon Hill Mansion.  The area that is now parkland surrounding the river was once the private estates of wealthy Philadelphians who could afford to escape to their "country homes" instead of suffering through summer in the city.  All of the remaining mansions are now city-owned and are open to the public during the holidays when they are decorated for Christmas.

The recreation path in front of Boathouse Row

Looking Westward

This statue has always intrigued me.  Usually, I see it when I'm zipping past at 35 miles per hour on the road along the east bank of the river, but on Sunday Kali and I had a chance to look at it closely.  It was completed in 1966 by a Lithuanian sculptor and depicts an American pioneer carrying a caduceus gazing westward across an eagle's back.  It's dramatic and interesting, but so abstract it's hard to puzzle out.  My image isn't the best, but it's hard to interpret even when you're standing next to it.

Promontory Rock rock

At one point, the recreational trail enters a short tunnel bored through Promontory Rock formed from the hard metamorphic schist bedrock along the river.  My final image, above, shows the rock in detail - tortured, folded, melted and reformed during the collision of North America and Africa 200 million years ago.

Our 8-mile hike took us 2 hours and 23 minutes, including stops for images.  We ate lunch as we walked.

Vanity (A Failed Experiment)

Creek in the moonlight - with my condensing breath

There's a very special place in "my" preserve called Peak Woods.  It's a 7-acre remnant old growth forest with huge American beeches, tuliptrees, and oaks cloaking a rocky, east-facing hillside rising up steeply from the bank of the creek.  I love to walk the trail alongside the creek at the base of the slope early on moonlit nights because the moonlight penetrates deeply into the forest and it reflects on the riffles in the creek, turning the water to quicksilver.

Last night, there was the added benefit of freshly fallen snow on the landscape, so I went for a walk soon after the moon rose - and I took my camera with me to try to capture some of the magic. 

In general, I was sorely disappointed - but I'm sharing the images with you anyway (hence, the first part of my post's title).  The woods and the creek were beautiful, but I was unable to capture the ambiance.  My camera has a "night scene" setting, but there just wasn't enough light even for that setting.  To do the woods justice, I need to bring along my tripod and shoot with a very long exposure.  And, to dress much more warmly!

The shadow of a bankside tree

My camera's flash kept going off; I assumed the camera was trying to measure the distance to the nearest object in order to focus the lens properly.  And, it probably was doing so, but it was also artificially illuminating the woods, an effect I was trying to avoid.

After photographing the creek and the woods, I was headed back to my car when the moonlight shining behind a post-and-rail fence caught my eye.  I figured, "What the heck; I'll give it a try." but the camera didn't seem to respond, so I gave up - and moved slightly just as the shutter clicked.  Here's the result.  If I'd had more patience, it might have made a nice image.

President's Day Cherry Tree Ramble

Climbing to the top of The Peak, a local topographic high point

It's become an annual tradition that I lead a President's Day Cherry Tree Ramble to entertain and educate folks who have President's Day off work (unlike me).  My goal in leading the walk is to enlighten the hikers about the myth of George Washington's chopping down a cherry tree and confessing his transgression to his father, and to show the participants how to distinguish between the native black cherry (Prunus serotina) in our woodlands vs. the introduced bird cherry (P. avium).

Washington's exploit was fabricated by an itinerant preacher and Washington groupie named Mason Locke Weems who published a book called The Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington in 1800.  In the fifth edition (published in 1806), Weems inserted the story about Washington's vandalism to demonstrate the future president's forthright and honest nature.  In reality, very little is known of Washington's early life, and historians are sure this story (among many of Weems' others) has no basis in reality.

Though the day was cold, the sky was bright blue and sunny.  The three hikers and I were accompanied on our walk by a forestry consultant named Joe who has been clearing invasive vegetation from one of our older woodlands in preparation for restocking the forest with new native trees this spring.  It was a convivial group, and the small size allowed us to interact frequently.

Hiker Judy examining the bark of a native black cherry

Native black cherry, when mature, develops a distinctive thick, scaly, dark bark.  The tree can live to be 200 years old, and produces lots of drupes that attract birds, which spread the seeds to new locations.

Forestry consultant Joe and hiker Karen atop The Peak with a bird cherry

In contrast, bird cherry (also called European, sweet, mazzard, or gean cherry), has a smooth bark with distinctive horizontal corky sections called lenticels.  Bird cherry is a short-lived tree (about 50 years) and has inferior value as lumber compared to the native species.  Like black cherry, bird cherry also produces numerous drupes that are consumed (and spread) by birds.  Bird cherry is the species that was cultivated to produce the edible cherries we use in pastries.  Though it was introduced by colonists from Europe, it is native to western Asia.

Consulting forest restoration expert Joe and the hikers looking at invasive vines in the forest canopy

Sunny Sunday Afternoon

 

Sunny meadow last Sunday afternoon.  Alas, the field was mowed on 

Monday morning as part of our meadow management regime.

The preserve over which I am steward contains the second (1817) and third (1840) oldest extant bridges in our county.  They no longer bear traffic and have been incorporated into our trail system.  This is a view of the second-oldest bridge, viewed upstream.

Unfortunately, age and torrential flooding have taken their toll over the years.  In the early '90s, we invested over $60,000 in this bridge.  Lately, we discovered that the footer for the pier standing in the creek is deteriorating and will have to be repaired.

In addition, graffiti vandals have "discovered" the bridge.  For years, we had few problems with graffiti, but it's becoming more and more pervasive.

On the other hand, if you ignore the spray paint and the failing  masonry, the view is still nice!

Chilly Sunday Walk

Kali and I took a 5-mile walk on Sunday afternoon in the city park downstream of the preserve.  The park embraces the same creek that flows through the preserve, but the stream is larger in the city, having been augmented by the flow of several sizable tributaries en route.  The day was cold (in the mid-30s F), but the sky was perfectly clear and the park was uncharacteristically deserted.  We had a fine walk.

 Cooper's Hawk perched on a beech limb over the creek

We bought a digital SLR two few weeks ago--a Canon T3i body fitted with a versatile Tamron 18-270 lens.  Kali simply could not see what she was photographing on the screen of our Nikon S10 point-and-shoot, so she desperately wanted a camera with a viewfinder and an all-purpose lens.  I want to take close-up images that can rival those of some of my fellow Bloggers, so I wanted a camera on which I could fit a closeup lens.  I'll have to wait to get the closeup lens for a while, though. The two images included in this post were taken with the new camera setup.  I was at least 200 feet from the hawk, so I'm not surprised that the image isn't great, but it was an experiment.

_____

My holidays this year promise to be not very merry.  Most immediately, one of my cats is on death's door.  She had a good life with us, but arrived as a stray and remained nearly feral despite sharing the house with us for over 10 years.  It has only been in the last two years that I've been able to touch her (and Kali has never been able touch her).  Because she is so skittish, we've never been able to take her to the vet; if we were to try to corner her or put her in a cat carrier, she would go berserk--we've tried.  So, once it became clear last week that she was in very serious decline, we figured we were just going to have to wait it out.  She's clearly miserable.

Then, last week, I learned that my 86-year-old father, who lives in San Diego, is receiving hospice care.  He'd had heart surgery in August 2010, never recovered adequately, and has been in and out of the hospital ever since.  I'm going to California right after the New Year to bid him adieu.  Needless to say, I'm a little subdued.

Ice Rings

 Kali and I just returned from a week in southern New Mexico, so I'll post about our exploration of the Chihuahuan desert natural world over the next few days.

In the meantime, some images of ice rings that formed in a pool alongside my creek.  These images were taken by a colleague from New York City when she and I went for a walk in my natural area on December 14--before we were buried by two snowstorms.

A Night Walk in the Winter Woods

Last night, I went for a walk in the forest preserve near my home. It was cold and clear, but the moon was four-fifths full and the landscape was bathed in moonlight. My favorite walk in the nighttime winter woods is to a 7-acre beech forest growing adjacent to the stream that flows through the preserve.

En route to the woods, I walked through fields of native Indian-grass (Sorghastrum nutans). The stalks were dead and dry, but still erect despite lots of wind and rain earlier this winter (the coming snows will finally mat them down). The strong, steady wind from the northwest sighed through the grasses; otherwise, the night would have been silent.

Approaching the beech forest is like entering a sanctuary. At the edge of the forest, a sizable 150-year-old black oak tree fell across the trail many years ago. The preserve managers cut out the portion of the bole blocking the trail, but left the remainder in place. Now, walking between the pieces of the trunk is like passing through a portal. To the left flowed the stream-- quicksilver riffles alternating with inky, black pools of unfathomable depth. To the right, on a step, rocky slope, stood the trees--mostly American beeches (Fagus grandifolia) [surely one of my favorite trees], but accompanied by many black and red oaks (Quercus velutina [I don't know the origin of velutina, but I always imagine it related to black velvet] and Q. rubra, respectively). The beeches are the reason to come to this ancient forest, though, standing luminously against the night-black hillside. Just at the top of the slope, the sky was visible and Jupiter shone between the branches.

Before I left the forest, I faced the stream and carefully positioned myself so that the trees along the bank blocked out all the lights from the few residences ringing the preserve. For one blessed moment, I imagined myself alone in the the wilderness.

The images accompanying this post are from the beech forest in the fall--and during daylight.