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My Dad and I did the Greater Allegheny Passage Trail from Frostburg to Pittsburgh last week. Amazing trip, highly recommended.
dr2dc.blogspot.com/2014/06/reviewing-great-allegheny-pass...
DL PT98 snakes through the curves at Point of Gap on the approach to Slateford Jct. The trailing units still wear former Indiana Hi-Rail paint but both would eventually be repainted into the "corporate" GVT scheme.
DL PT98:
DL 2461 C425
DL 2457 C425
DL 405 C420
In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, hiking to the pretty Grotto Falls on a wet rainy day is pure hell. Soul-stirring, intoxicating, memory-making pure hell!
Let me explain.
It all starts at the Trillium Gap Trailhead on the Roaring Fork Motor Nature trail… names so musical, they could be played on a piano. On a rainy afternoon, we were greeted at the trailhead by hordes of vehicles and muddy people. Yes, muddy people, who were smeared in raw earth up to their knees and in many visibly disgruntled extreme cases, up to their hips! Having played soccer back in the day in mucky fields, I could tell what may have caused these people to look like inedible grubby chocolate fudges. After the morning rain, the trail must have attained a fluidic state of being, whence it was unapologetically unwelcoming to people who overestimated their ability to walk on mud fondue.
“Rishabh, we have a problem”, I alerted my son as if both of us were on Apollo 13 and Houston was around to help us out. Instead of the duct-tape, which we didn’t have anyways, I pulled out our waterproof hiking boots. The hike, on paper, was 1.4 miles each way with a paltry elevation gain of 585 feet. Math suggests, such elevation over that distance should make for a gentle grade where a hiker’s happy lungs and knees could break into ballet and opera. But Math doesn’t understand the fluid dynamics of rain on an inadequately maintained trail trampled by thousands. “There are no hand rails in this battlefield…”, I reminded myself, “and we definitely don’t have extra clothes or plastic bags to protect the grace of our rental car seats upon return, if we get to return that is”.
The thought of return faded as adrenaline and we entered our veins and the trail respectively. As the going got tough, the tough got going. Rishabh grabbed an organic hiking pole donated first by a local anonymous tree and then by a kind hiker, and I twisted my tripod’s arm to act as the mud-catcher. The patchy trail was relatively easy to navigate in the first quarter of a mile, but soon after, the trail showed its true slippery slopes. People were tumbling every now and then; some laughing, some cussing and others deciding to turn around and quit the challenge. We did none of that. Using low hanging branches of Rhododendrons as sky-rails, we utilized every last bit of evolutionary memory left by our arboreal ancestors to leap across threatening puddles. When sky-rails were not available, we let our hiking boots sink right into the beast’s heart to give us some traction. I was glad that our boots – I am not going to lie to you – costed so much (although their resale value sank considerably after this day). Pushing through everything, including mud-wash services of four brooks that intercepted the trail and silent mockery of countless Eastern hemlocks lining the path, we made it to the lovely waterfall eventually.
Because of the onerous nature of the trail (or, ill-preparedness of other hikers), we found the waterfall to ourselves for a full three minutes (and twenty-seven seconds, I think). The solitude was cashed in to take photos of the tumbling water with the only lens on my person. Then, as more unsettled soldiers from other families arrived, Rishabh and I sat by the waterfall, pulled out our victory snack, and greeted each other with our water bottles. "Cheers!"
The ultimate prize on this hike came while walking behind the 25 feet waterfall (the trail goes on behind the waterfall on to Mt. LeConte, where we didn’t go because we didn’t have reservations). With our legs disembodied in mud, we horsed around a bit behind the waterbody. From there, the view was gorgeous and wet, but that was not the prize – not outrageously photograph-worthy either (see here). The dazzling reward was more subtle, stirring and indescribable, but let me try: the soul-cleansing waterfall gracefully washed away a lot of mud from my boots! Now, kick that!
The cliff is eroding fast, I don't know how much longer the remaining three houses will be there. There is a metal staircase to allow you to get down to the beach. 176 in Explore on 22nd August 2015.
There are interesting historic pictures of the cottages here.
www.sussex.ac.uk/geography/researchprojects/coastview/Ren...
had put down some from here but to cheer up the day...sharing a fav image from the gap.....have a good weelkend
The New Market gap slices through the Blue Ridge Mountains and route 211 runs through it connecting the small towns of Luray Virginia and New Market Virginia. This was taken in the Shenandoah Valley at the Meems Bottom covered bridge. Another rainy day with showers coming and going.........
Gaps. There remain so many gaps. It is a rare that I post a photo of myself. However, trawling through the American Archive, I found this from 9 years ago and thought “Why not?”
I had more time after retirement to pursue a life-long enthusiasm for music and became quite involved in Manchester’s Northern Quarter arts and music scene. Gideon Conn has featured on these flickr pages several times in the past. He had received an unexpected message from some guy in LA who was interested in an international musical collaboration. Gideon knew I was about to be flying to Los Angeles so he said “Why don’t you meet up with this bloke? See what he is all about and we’ll take it from there” Although I have liked an occasional track, rap is not really my scene. However, it sounded an interesting proposition so the deal was done.
So it was that I met and hung out for the day with O’Shea, aka Ice Cube. What became of the collaboration? Nothing, not least because Gideon moved more and more into his artistic painting career and away from his musical career.
Nevertheless it was a good day in LA. Here is the commemorative photo.
EDIT LATER IN THE DAY :
AHEM : Dear chaps and chappesses. What is the date today?? Oh my goodness it is April 1st. DOH!!!!! Hides behind the sofa to avoid direct hits from rotten tomatoes, rotten apples and probably worse.
Flickr Explore # 111 on Thursday, April 2, 2020
"Mind the gap" is the warning I remember hearing while boarding the underground train in London many years ago. When I took this photo, no one had yet gotten around to minding and mending the gap in the rear wall of a local barn. However, the gap gave me a nice chance to explore wood patterns and textures photographically.
Sort of Related story:
Long ago, in NYC, I was boarding the ferry to visit the Statue of Liberty. A ferry employee was standing at the ferry boarding portal. Over and over, as we boarded, he said what sounded to my western USA ears like "loya hid, loya hid." When I banged my head on the iron at the top of the boarding portal, he said, in his best NewYork-ese, "See, loya hid" (iower your head).
Location: Moostal (Moss Valley) Riehen BS Switzerland.
In my album: Dan's Patterns: Wood.
The Gap and Natural Bridge, Albany, Western Australia
Overlooking The Gap. Seeing and feeling the surge of the Southern Ocean 40m below you, and the salty sea spray. What an experience!
Hoya Pro1D Circular Polarising Filter
Handheld
Alpine tarns on the slopes of Mt. Rainier, just below Panhandle Gap. The V-22 in the next photo came over us from just to the right of the peak on the left.
Sometimes, I feel as if I was that glass and I was breaking inside. Watching helplessly as these gaps grow at full speed, before I could react, as if an invisible finger was pushing down on me, crushing me slowly, unable to do anything about it.
READ MORE...
Check out my blog to keep updated:
reachingthesoul.blogspot.com.es/2014/02/gaps-and-cracks.html
The amazing Chalamain Gap in the Cairngorms, a ravine perhaps 200m long and choked with boulders. It’s a main route - linking the Lairig Ghru with the Cairn Gorm road.
There are no obvious paths through this lot, meaning it's a case of clambering and picking a way from one end to the other. It's uneven and rough with some tricky gaps between the boulders... but good fun for all that, and certainly a unique place.
“Mind” is not used quite the same way in the United States. For most Americans “the gap” is a retail store. I guess why that is why Americans are so tickled to death about hearing this phrase. I’ve come to realize that words and customs differ so greatly.
The old tobacco barn: it has been attended to, propped up in places. I think it will stay standing a while.
Distant view of section of Echo Cliffs rising up beyond The Gap, a small community along U.S. 89 in Coconino County, Arizona, that's also the home of the Bodaway-Gap Chapter of the Navajo Nation. The high point on the rock, which is part of a continuous 60-mile stretch of cliffs along the highway, is about 5 miles from the spot where I took the shot and about 1,200-1,400 feet above the valley floor.
Damselflies and dragonflies of Dorset # 28.
Another gap filled in the Dorset odonata collection. I forgot to upload this at the time. Doh! I blame old age.
This photo of White-legged Damselflies in cop becomes my 28th species of odonata photographed in Dorset. Having established a likely site, I was amazed to find them to be the most common damselfly or dragonfly along a one mile stretch of the River Stour at Canford Magna. They were easily into double figures and could well have passed the hundred mark in total. They are pretty much unknown in the county except for the lower reaches of the R. Stour between Wimborne Minster and Christchurch which includes Canford Magna.