Traveling Extensively in Hinckley
Henry David Thoreau said he had "travelled extensively in Concord" or something like that. He meant that a person doesn't need to go far to actually explore the world, because there's enough of it out our back doors to keep us busy for a long time (that's why I admire a couple of my friends - there probably isn't a two track/old hiking path/powerline easement in Medina County that they haven't explored). Well, today I found Thoreau to be right on the mark again. Supe and I took a hike in Hinckley and found a new trail. I've got to tell you: I've spent more than may share of time poking around Hinckley. It's not a very big place, but there are some spaces where people still don't go to very often. One of those is....well, that wouldn't be very smart of me, now would it? The trail we found wasn't actually new; we'd been down it before, but we found an approach to it from a small parking lot, a short section of trail, maybe 200-300 yards (like a tree) that is kinda hidden from the road, but very well-worn and obviously very old. The day made this approach section and the rest of the trail seem brand new to me.
I've also done my share of poking around PA and WV, and I was a startled to find this small grove of rhododendron trees about ten minutes into our walk along a section of the trail that must have once been a road. They made me feel like I was at Quebec Run or Kennerdell or Cooper's Rock. It makes sense; actually; there's plenty of Eastern Hemlock in Hinckley, so it stands to reason that the rhododendron trees would also grow in this region. (Post a reply if I'm full of shit and you've seen rhodo elsewhere in Hinckley)
I feel like today was one of those days that either scares the shit out of you about global warming or makes you rejoice about how wonderful things can be sometimes. I'll take equal portions of both, but damn was today sweet.
The superdog was pent up all week and deserved some stomping time. She made the best of it as we made our way through a grove of old growth trees down to one of my favorite places in the world:
I decided to get all freaking Ansel Adams with the editing of this pic. Sometimes, pictures can't capture what we see (or at least I'm not skilled enough), and I really think that camera effects can help capture the mood. It was a fine mood:
I don't know how to describe this place. A couple of years ago, I saw a rock that I thought someone had rolled over the waterfall, somehow. It sat there at the base of the falls for a few months until a heavy rain washed it downstream about 30 feet. It was then that I realized that no one had rolled it or moved it; it had been washed down the stream by the force of the water. It's a small boulder, maybe two feet in diameter, but either somebody was being stupid and pushing decent size rocks down the stream or there was another explanation. And think it was easy to explain: the water is a powerful force, and that rock was eroded slowly out of the bank and was pushed by the force of the water. I've observes a lot of rocks in the stream bed just like that one, and their steady movement down the river bed over years attest to the power of water in even such a small stream. It's totally trivial and totally amazing at the same time. It's still there, saw it today. It occurred to me that it may be the measure of my life: I was alive long enough to witness the movement of some stupid rock in a river. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's also a huge mass of dirt and rock with a tree on top hanging about 50 feet over that particular bend in the stream. I hope that I get to witness the landslide that brings it down, too.
Old Bonnie loved this spot, too. It's nice to see Supe digging it:
One of the cool things about this part of Hinckley is the old growth trees that somebody had the brains not to cut down.
It was a cool day, as I'm sure everybody already knows.
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