Crystalline Wall

The county park that Kali and I frequent when it's too muddy to walk in our own backyard features a long, deep railroad cut through metamorphic gneiss.  The cut is about twenty feet deep and about two hundred feet long - the longest and deepest cut on the entire line, which was built in 1876.

Perennial springs seep from the northern face of the cut, and the moist, rocky niches support hanging gardens of mosses and ferns.  The recent cold weather utterly transformed the vertical landscape.

New Year's Eve (2009) Walk

After leaving work at noon on New Year's Eve, we went for a walk on the rail-to-trail at the county park downstream of my usual natural area. It had snowed an inch that morning, and it was cold, but not cold enough to freeze the soil, so I didn't want to walk the trails in my regular haunt because it's very soggy there. We came across these massive icicles in the railroad cut called "The Gorge."

Along another part of the trail, we came upon another icicle formation.



I liked the way the water almost appeared to have congealed as it flowed over the rock.

Finally, we came to Harper's Run. In addition to the image I made on New Year's Eve, I've re-posted an image I made in the autumn from the same vantage point.