Posts Tagged ‘waterfall’

Indian Falls

October 31, 2008
Indian Falls, Indian Falls, New York. October 24, 2008.

Indian Falls, Indian Falls, New York. October 24, 2008.

Betsy and I arrived in the Buffalo area late last Friday afternoon.  After visiting with Kelly and Chuck at their home for a while, they took us out for a fish fry.  The restaurant they took us to was the Log Cabin Restaurant in Indian Falls, New York.

Indian Falls (the town) gets its name from a waterfall, Indian Falls, on Tonawanda Creek.  Tonawanda is Iroquois for “swift water.”  In 1828 a Seneca baby was born in a log cabin on the bank of Tonawanda Creek at the waterfall.  His Seneca name was Hasanoanda, but he later took the English name Ely Samuel Parker.  He later became the military secretary to General Ulysses S. Grant and drafted the terms for Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox in 1865.  Parker later, under President Grant,  became the first American Indian to be Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

Indian Falls is a beautiful little waterfall and the fish fry at the restaurant was absolutely delicious.  What a wonderful way to begin our visit!

To  see more pictures of Indian Falls click HERE.

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Cool Memories for a Hot Afternoon

August 22, 2008
Ozone Falls, Crab Orchard, Tennessee. February 10, 2007.

Ozone Falls, Crab Orchard, Tennessee. February 10, 2007.

Yesterday was another hot, dry day up here on the Plateau. The weatherman isn’t offering us much hope for relief from either the high temperatures or the lack of rain. I’m sure some of the people in Florida would be glad to send us some of their rain, if only we could figure out a way to get it up here!

Since it was too hot to work outside for much of the afternoon, I worked on some of my digital photo albums instead. One album that I came across was a set of pictures we took at Ozone Falls back in February, 2007.

That trip to Ozone Falls was a great one to recall on a hot summer day. There were icicles all around the falls on that day. It made things seem a little cooler just looking at the pictures.

Ozone Falls is a small waterfall about ten miles from our house. It’s in the Ozone State Natural Area which is really quite a small area with the 110 foot waterfall. The trail to the top of the falls is very short, although the trail to the base of the falls is a bit longer and involves a scramble down a rocky path. But the scramble is definitely worth it.

To see pictures of our cool visit to Ozone Falls click HERE.

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A Hiking First (For Us)

August 1, 2008

As I’ve mentioned several times, Betsy and I collect waterfalls.  We’ve been to 278 different waterfalls since our visit to Fall Creek Falls in 2001.  Some of the waterfalls have been big and well-known (Niagara Falls) while others are small and have been found mostly by accident.

Getting to many of the waterfalls involve a hike.  We’ve visited most of the roadside waterfalls in the area we know about, so our waterfall visits usually involve some hiking.  Although we don’t hike real long distances, hiking is something that both of us enjoy.

In June we visited our good friends Judy and Charlie Jones, who were camping at Cades Cove Campground in the Smokies.  Judy and Charlie like to hike and have probably done more hiking than we’ve done.  But Judy always worries about running into a bear on their hikes.  We kidded her about that, because Betsy and I had never seen a bear on any of the hikes we’d taken.

After leaving Judy and Charlie, Betsy and I decided to hike to the nearby Crooked Arm Cascades.  We knew from our guide book that the hike would be about 1.5 miles and was moderately easy.  Since we were in the Smokies in the early summer, we knew the scenery would be beautiful.

We had only gone about half a mile along the trail when we saw a mother bear and two cubs cross the trail up ahead of us.  We stayed back and still until they had moved away from the trail.  We were able to watch them for five minutes or so without any problems, but we had lost our excuse for teasing Judy about bears on the trail.

To see more of our hike to Crooked Arm Cascade click HERE.

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A Very Pleasant Surprise

July 22, 2008

As I mentioned, Betsy and I went to her hometown, Big Stone Gap, Virginia, over the weekend to attend a family reunion.  We had a nice time and I’ll probably have more to say about it in the days ahead.

Now that we have a GPS unit in the car we have travelled more back roads on our trips.  Our GPS — Miss Bar-Beak — knows where we are even on the back roads and can get us to where we want to go.

By taking the back roads we get to see some beautiful scenery that we otherwise would not see.  Sunday we were driving through the mountains when we saw a little green sign that said “Elrod Falls” and had an arrow pointing to the right.  Betsy and I looked at each other and asked “Do you think that’s a waterfall?”  Neither of us knew, but we decided to check it out.

We turned around and took the road designated by the sign.  We had a couple of false starts because that was the only sign we saw, but we finally got on the correct road and went further back into the mountains on a gravel road.

The road ended at a picnic area and a short path led us to Elrod Falls.  Since this part of the country is in the second year of a drought we were surprised to see a fair amount of water coming over the falls (see the picture above).

We met a couple who lived in the area at the falls and they said there was much more water in the late winter and early fall.  It looks like we’ll be going back there again!

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A Rainy Day Waterfalls Trip

July 16, 2008

Betsy and I ‘collect’ waterfalls. Since we fell in love at Fall Creek Falls back in 2001, we’ve visited as many waterfalls as possible. We now have 277 waterfalls in our ‘collection’.

We do most of our hiking to waterfalls in the winter or spring, since that’s when most waterfalls have their greatest flow. Besides that, our lawn and flowers keep us busy in the summer.

We do try to do our hiking in good weather, but we’re not always successful. Earlier this year Betsy did some research on the internet and found two waterfalls at Lula Lake near Chattanooga, Lula Lake is owned by a private organization and is only open to the public on the first and last Saturday of the month.

We decided to go visit Lula Lake the last Saturday in March. It was cloudy when we left the Glade, but absolutely pouring by the time we got to Chattanooga. We went on to Lula Lake anyway and, because there were very few people there we were able to drive fairly close to the falls. We got soaked anyway.

On the way home we decided to swing by Lowry Creek in the Cherokee National Forest. Lowry Creek has a series of small waterfalls that can be reached by a relatively short hike along the creek-side. The trail was muddy (and steep) but definitely worth the effort.

To see pictures of our rainy day visits to waterfalls click HERE.

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