The Falls trail is less than 3 miles from start to finish but there’s a good bit of up and down to it in that it’s, you know, along a set of falls.   It took us about 80 minutes to make it down.  We reached the bottom and to save time took a short path back up.  I estimated it’d take us 60% longer to go up, it took us 25% less.  I guess I took more time than I thought taking pictures.

April 04, 2010-289-RickettsGlenWeekendAnd2more Generic single-layer falls

April 04, 2010-401-RickettsGlenWeekendAnd2more
Generic multi-level falls

April 04, 2010-310-RickettsGlenWeekendAnd2more Ganoga Falls’ 97′ drop.  Twas purdy.

One of Pat’s many prosaic comments was “that [the river] did this [the gorge].”  To think, there’s a goodly portion think the below was done during the Deluge.

April 04, 2010-265-RickettsGlenWeekendAnd2more Pat conjectured that it was the Civilian Conservation Corps that did the work, Wikipedia said that was close.  There was a CCC camp setup there as the area was to be turned into a national park.  The outbreak of WWII stopped that and the trails were repaired when the site was bought by the state.  Wonderful work they did, but some of the signs could seem confusing.

April 04, 2010-247-RickettsGlenWeekend

The Anecdote

I like to consider myself an advocate for diversity.  I enjoyed Temple University over Penn State partly for that reason but I was not prepared for the clash-of-worlds experienced at Ricketts Glen.  People who camp on Easter weekend are a combination of godless heathens, gentiles, and apparently Indian Americans.

An Indian American family camped immediately across from us and my head nearly popped when Lakshmi and Ritesh began singing Stephen Foster songs while the parents assembled their fishing gear.  Had the father pulled out a guitar while the kids were singing, my head may have popped.  Geez, America is good at pushing people through the sieve of US culture.

The Pictures

90% of the pictures I took were bracketed (a dark, normal, and light picture) that I later combined.

April 02, 2010-5-RickettsGlenWeekendAnd2more The tustle of roots on the opposite side is one of the sharpest things I’ve ever seen.  I’m not sure why.

April 02, 2010-11-RickettsGlenWeekendAnd2more While waiting for Pat to arrive, I took a lot of pictures of the sky.  Normally, HDR obliterates the blue of the sky.  I’m glad it was saturated enough to come through.

April 02, 2010-32-RickettsGlenWeekendAnd2more I scoffed at the announcement last week that the Falls Trail was re-opened as it was no longer covered in ice.  I thought this was a delayed announcement until I saw how much snow was still around.

April 03, 2010-167-RickettsGlenWeekendAnd2more I don’t know if I prefer the reality or the painting.

April 03, 2010-198-RickettsGlenWeekendAnd2moreSomehow the green looks like its attacking the camera.