Niagara Falls

July 23-31, 2012
(This week will be broken up to be a few posts since it is photo intensive.  It was a busy, wonderful week!)

Youngstown, NY
Four Mile Creek State Park (NY) site 65

If you want to be a tourist, then Niagara Falls is the place to be.  We set up camp next to Dan and Tricia at a NY State Park that was about 13 miles away from all the hubbub so that we could enjoy a little quiet time also.  Tricia’s son Brandon and his wife Amanda flew in from Wake Forest NC to join us for the week.  Also in camp was Mac and Moe who are a hoot of a couple that Dan and Tricia met this past winter in Cedar Key FL.  We all went to the Falls on the first day along with a few thousand other people.  It is Beautiful!!

 

We all enjoyed walking around the NY side and I just marveled at the power and beautiful color of the water.  Since we had our receipt from the other state park cg, we didn’t have to pay for parking.  That was nice.

 

 

It was indeed a lot of people there, but the park is set up so that it didn’t feel all that crowded.  There are a few different attractions to get you closer to the Falls and to get a bit of history of this Natural Wonder so that helps to spread out the crowd.

 

One of those attractions is Maid of the Mist which is a boat ride upstream to the base of the Falls.  They run a boat from the Canada side and another from the US side.  They issue a blue poncho to you so that you won’t get completely wet.

 

The next three shots were taken from the boat before I had to put the camera away due to the spray.  The awesome power of the water is just indescribable.

 

There were lots of posed pictures taken with beautiful backdrops…

 

and some pictures developed much slower.

Another attraction that we took advantage of on this first day of Niagara was the Caves of the Wind walk on the Hurricane Deck.  The decking and stairs are replaced every year due to the extreme winter weather.

 

We finished off our first day at Niagara by walking over to Three Sisters Islands which isn’t nearly so crowded.  It was a nice way to end our extreme tourist experience.

The End

Moore Cove Falls

Cascade Lake CG
Pisgah Forest, NC

I started the morning a little earlier yesterday.  The water on the lake was so smooth and it was quiet.  Except for the humming birds.  I know at least one cg host has a feeder.  They’re hungry little things.

We decided to go to Moore Cove Falls.  The weather was perfect, low humidity and about 80 degrees.  I packed a picnic lunch and refilled the humming bird feeder.  While I was doing that, our cg neighbor came by to say that she has enjoyed the little birds too.  She has been full-timing about four years now in her Lazy Daze Class C MH.  She’s a senior citizen and is on oxygen but seems quite happy.

We drove over towards Brevard and Hwy 276 past the Ranger Station.  There is a little pull-off on the right side of the road right at a bridge.  This is where the trail to the falls begins.  It’s about 7 tenths of a mile one way…up.  That’s the Suki by the road.

 

We saw a lot of fern and moss on the trail.  You can hear traffic for a while but then birds and running water are the only sounds.

 

It was so peaceful with a small creek right beside us.  Mostly “down” beside us.  It is only about 4 feet wide and that is what the falls is on.  I wasn’t anticipating a very big waterfall.

Little one-person bridges crossed it several times.  There were a couple of big rock outcroppings along the way.

It just amazes me that a big tree or in this case, a beautiful rhododendron bush can grow out of solid rock.  What a great root system.

I sure wish all the trail was this nice, but about half of it had steps, stones, or roots to trip you up.

We finally got there, and it was worth it!  That’s me in the bottom corner.  It’s a 50 foot fall even though it’s a small creek.

The greatest thing about this waterfall is walking behind it and looking up through the water at the blue sky and trees.  Small plants are hanging on for dear life in the rock.

It’s almost like a cave behind the falls.  There is this one really neat rock formation about the size of a car jutting out but touching anything.

I’m not real sure what Gin was thinking about, but she may have been dreading the walk back down the trail.  This is her last hike for quite a while.  Her legs are killing her.

We slowly started our descent back to the Suki.  This is a popular trail.  Many people passed us going up and coming down.  They all seemed to be in a rush to get to the falls but didn’t go slow enough to enjoy the journey.  A little bit like life for some folks.  We stopped to look around and even enjoyed breathing the clear air.

We decided to have our picnic at Sycamore Flats.  It’s a nice public day use picnic area of the Pisgah National Forest.  There is a Forest CG close by, Davidson River CG, that has no hook-up on most sites.  We’ll keep it in mind when we are full-timing in this area.  This picnic area is beside the river and is a popular place.  The squirrels are almost tame.  This one was fun to watch.  He kept burying the same nut over and over.  Notice how he pats it down with his paws.

We made it back to camp.  Smudge had stayed home this time so I walked her as soon as I got there.  Gin took a well deserved nap on the couch and I snoozed a bit in the lounge chair outside.  It’s made for lounging ya know.  After supper, Gin built a nice campfire and we sat outside until the stars came out.  You just don’t know how many there are if you live near a city.  Oh, the coconut marshmallows were a perfect ending to the day.

We plan to take it easy today around camp and perhaps paddle on the lake some.  It’s another perfect weather day so we may just sit outside and enjoy the clear mountain air.

Courthouse Falls

Cascade Lake CG site #P4
Pisgah Forest, NC

Over the river…

…and through the woods…

…to Courthouse Falls we go!

We packed a picnic lunch Friday and took the Scenic Byway through Brevard and up to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It’s a 65 mile loop by way of Hwy 64W, right onto Hwy 215(very curvy), right onto the BRP, and right onto Hwy 276(curvy) to Hwy 64 again.  We wanted to find a beautiful, remote, yet fairly easy to view waterfall.  Courthouse Falls fit  the plan perfectly.  From Hwy 215 you turn onto FR140 and go about 3 miles.  It’s a gravel road with potholes.  After all the rain we’ve had, it was quite bumpy but there were spontaneous small falls and seeping rocks right beside the road.

After parking at a pullout next to the fourth bridge, we got on the Summey Cove trailhead and followed it for about half a mile.  This was a beautiful but wet hike with Courthouse Creek flowing right beside us.  We had to stop a few times just to enjoy the view.

Gin got this salamander on a rock but I was too mesmerized by the flowing water to notice it.

The switchback part of the trail to get to a clear view of the falls was a bit tricky and wet.  I know why it is so lush and green…it rains a little every day in the mountains.  We made it down to get some good shots but we didn’t try the very steep steps to get to the very bottom of the falls.  There was a young couple down there enjoying a picnic and we didn’t want to land on them if we fell.  :)

Yes, I carried Smudge the whole way.  She weighs 10 pounds so I switched arms once in a while.  She is 13 years old and she has aged a lot in the past couple of years.  As I stood next to the sheer rock with the water seeping out of it, I felt like I was so far away from the rest of the world.  The rock wall circles this 45 foot waterfall.
We started working our way back to the Suki.  She handled this road pretty good but I wouldn’t bring a small sedan back there into the woods.  This is what the trails looked like for the most part and another view of the creek.

After the bumpy ride out of the woods, we were very happy to get on smooth pavement.  We soon got on the Blue Ridge Parkway and saw some beautiful rhododendron blooming.  I don’t know what the orange flowering bush is, but it was sprinkled along the roadside also.

 

We stopped for lunch at one of the first overlooks we got to on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It was a nice little picnic table there and a view of the Devils Courthouse which feeds the creek that forms the falls.  Click on the information sign to get some background info.  It’s kinda interesting.

The fog moved in.  It was, of course, more rain clouds.  We could no longer see the huge rock of Devils Courthouse which was right in front of us.

After putting our trash in the bear-proof trashcan, we hit the road again.  It is about 10 degrees cooler up here than it is at camp.  I just love the weeping rock right next to the road.  It was easier to see inside the tunnel than it was in the thick fog.

We were both tired so we didn’t make any stops along Hwy 276.  We got back to camp and took naps.  The invasion of the week-end warriors began in earnest.  The only plans for Saturday are to relax, fill the hummingbird feeder, and cook a steak on the grill.  We need a day or two off to recharge.  It should be nice weather Monday so I feel another waterfall trip coming on. :)  There’s just so much to do in this area.  We could spend all summer here and still not run out of adventures.