Jan 16, 2017

We got up and made our way to Cornell University for sunrise. It's a gorgeous campus with historic buildings and great views of the town. We wandered around for the better part of an hour checking out the architecture and admiring the light as it appeared on the brick facade of the tower. Another nice start to a day and a good walk on the hilly grounds.

We had about two hours of driving down to Ricketts Glen State Park in PA. The trail was immediately icy, but this time there was a lot of snow to go along with it. The gorge trail was marked to stay off unless we had proper gear like crampons and axes, but we felt like we would be fine and could make the decision to turn back if it seemed dangerous.

The waterfalls were insanely beautiful covered in snow and ice. I can't believe I've never come here in winter before. This is another example of a place I didn't think could get any more beautiful, but here I am proved wrong again. We spent a lot of time at each set of falls admiring and photographing them from different angles.

The trail did end up getting a little precarious at times, but we both made it without incident. I am impressed even more with the Yaktrax after this. We decided to do the whole loop, which probably made it about 6 miles total, but it definitely didn't feel that long with so much to see.

Toward the end we were able to get behind this waterfall that was almost totally frozen over. The view from behind the ice looking down on the glen was so amazingly unique. We couldn't have been happier to get to see all of this.

Sadly we had to leave eventually, but some cake batter/chocolate twist from Vegan Treats cheered us up. We sat there eating the ice cream that the guy "poured too high" which we both agreed wasn't possible and no one would ever care. It was delicious and we each picked up another little treat for later. The drive home seemed super long in traffic and we stopped at Trader Joe's in Philly for groceries before heading back home. Just grocery shopping on the weekend like average people.

Feb 11, 2012

Kate and I went up to pick up Nathan then continued into New York to the Catskills and the Warner Creek Trail. It took some looking around to find the trail head and then some slow, careful walking to begin up the stream bed full of rocks covered with snow and ice.

Our slow ascent also had us wondering if we were on the right trail. I tried to stick to the knowledge that my concern usually turns out to be over nothing and we eventually came to the trail marker we were looking for and headed toward the Devil's Path.

The entire trail was like this: slightly snow-covered inches-thick ice. It was crazy slippery. We had to walk slowly and carefully and basically not pick up our feet. Every step had to be calculated. We all fell down at least once. It was slightly nerve-racking yet really fun at the same time.

After some really difficult climbs up steep hills (covered in the same amount of ice) using mostly trees and luck to get us up, we came to a mostly flat area of coniferous forest that was a welcome break and a beautiful sight with snow hanging on the branches. It seemed like we had made it farther than we really had and we started thinking we should turn around soon.

We stopped at an overlook to enjoy the brief view before we turned around to descend the same way we came up. The way down was arguably more difficult than the ascent. The ice seemed a little more treacherous as we tried to get down steep hills. The nice part was that we could just sit down and slide! Kate and Nathan really took that method as their own. It was quite amusing to see them sliding through trees and around corners.

It was a long journey back, especially once night fell and we were still a good way from our car. It suddenly became even more dangerous and slow-going than before. With a firm grip on every tree we could grasp and a triple-checked footfall before each step, we descended the icy slope and the stream bed we climbed up in the afternoon light just a few hours before. Luckily I had brought my flashlight, which helped immensely on the rocky trail.

It must have taken us an hour after dark to get back to the car. We had a few falls, but luckily no one was hurt. The best feeling every was taking off our wet clothes and shoes when we got to the car and then eating the halves of our sandwiches we left from lunch. It was much more of a challenge than I ever expected, and we all performed very well. It was trying, but it was so much fun. We dropped Nathan off at the train stop and headed down the highway back home to a comfortable bed.