July 28 – Un-viewpoints

Just a short post to let everyone know what we are doing, as this is our last day in the US before heading up to our cottage.

I always try to book one or two extra “weather” days at each place. I determine the the things I really want to see, count the days needed and add a few more rain days. Since the weather has been great here, today we just went to a few lookouts around the park that we had skipped.

I called them un-viewpoints because as usual there were trees and shrubs blocking just about every one. The park has these massive lawns that seemed to get mowed very regularly. A bit more work and they could have a few more great lookouts.

One of MANY.

We first headed back towards the south end to a place called Wolf Creek. A rather large creek plunges over the gorge edge in a series of cascades and large waterfalls.

But you can’t see it.

From the parking area you can see up creek.

Jennie was looking at this interesting stone.

This bridge is at the top of the falls but not over them.

Part of the Gorge Trail goes up the right edge of the creek valley.

The trail description said that you would get a few views of the falls. This is the best I could do.

Heading back down to Jennie waiting on the bridge.

Heading down the other side this is what we mostly saw looking over the wall.

The best view from this side only showed the very top section of the long waterfall.

Quickly moving on, we drove up to the very north end of the park to the Mount Morris Dam overlook.

This is a flood control dam. It is not meant to hold a reservoir.

I heard other people at the viewpoint looked down at the dry area behind the dam and think of California and worry about the lack of water. I let them know what I read about the dam.

The river is actually down there but flows along the wall closest to us, which we can’t see because of all the bushes.

Normally the river water flows right through the dam and on downstream. Only in times of potential flood do they close it off to regulate the flow heading towards Rochester.

In 1972 Hurricane Agnes actually cause so much rain that the dam would have overflowed. Here is a picture at that time, from the Wikipedia page for the dam.

At another viewpoint you can (almost) see the back of the dam.

And the river flowing through on the bottom left.

If you go around to the visitor’s center on the other side of the gorge they do run 30 person first come, first served tours of the dam, once a day, but we have been to some really big ones and we just felt lazy.

As to our plans for the near future. Tomorrow we are heading up to the family cottage, with a pitstop at home. We are going to spend two weeks with my parents and my cousins, then it is my sister’s turn for a week of her vacation. After that we are coming back to the cottage to spend some time with friends.

Then it will be September. I am thinking that we might explore a bit of northern Michigan, to put off having to go home until curling season starts.

So the posts will therefore be rather sporadic for the next while. I’ll only publish if something picture worthy happens.

July 27 – Stony Brook State Park

Another day, another gorge.

I figured that a nice narrow gorge might provide some shade on another hot and sunny day. We drove about 40 minutes south to Stony Brook State Park to once again do the Gorge Trail. It was a little over 1 mile each way.

The one blog post I had read on this place talked about the great scenery and waterfalls. What it didn’t say is that it is one giant swimming hole. We wished that we had brought water shoes and were not carrying expensive cameras and backpacks with wallets. We probably would not have gone swimming but wading would have been on the menu.

The only official area for swimming is right at the lower parking lot. They have dammed up the brook to create a huge swimming pool complete with life guards.

The sign said that the water temperature was 64 F. I doubt that I could have gotten in.

At the end of the pool as we started to walk up the gorge, there were signs saying that it was strictly prohibited and illegal to swim or even wade in the brook. As you will see the rule is not enforced at all.

Since we got here almost at noon it was another picture day of very dark shadows, very bright sunny spots and over processed pictures.

Around the corner was the first small waterfall.

Over the first bridge.

And around a corner.

Lots of narrow chutes with deep pools at the bottom to slide down.

The next bridge and waterfall.

Just above the bridge.

It was a busy place.

Then the first of the two large waterfalls.

On to the next one.

After this there were no more waterfalls so the crowds really thinned out.

Since we needed to use the facilities near the upper parking lot, we had to take these very long stairs up the side of the gorge.

We noticed that the East Rim Trail started here, by going over this bridge. We went down to investigate.

Jennie was intrigued by the little chute.

It seemed like a nice uncrowded place to have lunch. By now it was about 2 o’clock.

We headed back down the Gorge Trail.

Jennie tried a bit of wading.

It’s all downhill.

We got back to the car at about 3:30 and headed back to the RV for our ice cream reward.