Trails & Trees - Part 3 - Sparta-Elroy Rail Trail

2-3 August 2017

This post is dedicated to Elger G. Wells, Jr. (my father). My Dad always wanted to ride this route, but never had the opportunity to do so during his lifetime. I am sure he would have been delighted to have one of his children finally ride his dream.

The Sparta-Elroy Trail is one of the first “Rail Trails” in the US. It opened in 1967 on the railbed that had been owned by the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad. At the height of its existence the route had 6 passenger trains and up to 50 freight trains daily. Wow! The three tunnels are the centerpiece of this ride.

We rode from Elroy to Sparta on 2 August and camped at the Sparta Campground. (Way too many mosquitoes to tolerate -- thank goodness that they don’t carry malaria or dengue -- but encephalitis and West Nile fever are a possibility.) We returned to Elroy on 3 August -- dodging/tolerating rain the whole way.

A storm earlier in July had caused significant damage to the rail -- particularly around the tunnel entrances, but other than getting some wet feet, the trail was in great shape.

Coming from Elroy, this is the first tunnel. The structure in the foreground is there to tell the brakeman that there’s a tunnel coming up and he (always a “he”) should get off the roof of the train while going through the tunnel.

A flash photo in Tunnel #1 shows the wet sides and the roof blackened from decades of steam-driver trains.

The sides of Tunnel #1 (also found in Tunnel #3) are shiny-white from calcite deposits that occur from water dripping down the side -- like flowstone formations in caves.

The entrance to tunnel #2.

Tunnel #2 has a lot of brick niches in the walls for workers to take shelter when a train came through the tunnel.

The entrance to the longest tunnel,  tunnel #3 -- note that you cannot see the end of the tunnel. This made for a spooky walk through the tunnel. (Although it is possibly to ride through the tunnels -- the trail surface is fairly smooth and predictable -- the official position is that everyone should walk their bikes through the tunnels.)

As we got about 3/4 of the way through the tunnel, a glimmer of light shone ahead. It turns out that there was so much fog at this end of the tunnel that it blocked the light. When we came back through the next day, the end of the tunnel was visible when we entered.

The tunnel end taken at a shorter exposure.

The trail of last 100 feet of so this tunnel was covered with water, and there was a lot of trail damage just outside the tunnel. Walking through this ankle-deep water made for very wet feet!

Who knew that rain gear would be helpful in tunnels? Tunnel #3 was very wet. According to the signage, the tunnel construction crew encountered a spring. It still spills great quantities of water in the tunnel. The walls are very wet; the roof weeps with water; at times it sounds like a downpour.

In an effort to control erosion, this rock flume was constructed at the Elroy end of Tunnel #3 to divert water around the tunnel. (It looks a lot like an old Roman road!)

Lon’s bike is really loaded for our return trip. I just look really fat!

Trails & Trees - Part 2 - Pittsburgh

Today we took a walk through the nearby South Side Park.

Lon carried Amos in a backpack. This park is way too hilly for strollers!

A deep, steep, and highly overgrown ravine (“Jurassic Valley”) runs down the east side of the park. One of our main reasons for going to the park was to see the goats that are being used to clear this vegetation. A portion of the silver electrified fence is barely visible near the bottom center of the photo.

Lon & Amos blend into the dense vegetation on the Sterling St Connector Trail. This is the top end of the goat area.

The magic of a telephoto lens! The orange fencing warns hikers of the electric fence.

The blue tarp is part of a shelter for the goats. The solar panels charge the battery that provides electricity for the fence.

Today the goats were right along the fence. They were mostly munching on pokeweed. They’ve got a lot of vegetation to eat if they are to clear the hillside in six weeks!

Here you can see the orange plastic “warning” fence and silver electrified fence -- as well as the goats.

When we got to the Sterling St Steps, we came across a deer that promptly ran away from us.

These steps are officially Sterling Street.

Looking downhill along Sterling St.

Trails & Trees - Part 1 - Pittsburgh

Friday, 28 July 2017

We started our “Trees & Trails” adventure with family time in Pittsburgh - today is Amos’ 2nd birthday. So we started with a morning trip to the Phipps Conservatory.

The current show at Phipps is an installation of large glass flowers by Jason Gamrath. I didn’t find it as interesting as a Chihuly glass installation from a few years back (2007, see last photo below), but it is still stunning workmanship and artistry.

Huge glass Sarracenia pitcher plants could be found throughout the conservatory.

Glass and real Sarracenia.

I really liked the pattern on the horizontal trunk of this Lacy Tree Philodendron (Philodendron bipinnatifidum).

Maria and Amos on the bridge in the Japanese garden.

And finally, one of my photos from the 2007 Chihuly exhibit at Phipps that I use as one of my desktop images.

Jackson River Scenic Trail

We finally returned to the new section of the Jackson River Scenic Trail today. It's a beautiful 6.6 mile ride from the Smith Bridge parking lot to the northern end of the trail.

A small fawn stood "frozen" for several minutes. The translucent ears are enormous!

A closer look at the fawn's head.

At the northern end of the trail, about a dozen turkey vultures were flying through the woods. Here's a look at three of them.

Common teasel may be an invasive alien species, but the butterflies seemed to like it.

This power line pole had a tree grow into its guide-wires.

That's a fairly substantial log (12" diameter?) hanging on the guide-wire.

Compost Gardens

Every year it's interesting to see what will spontaneously grow in the vegetable debris in our compost heap.

We frequently get tomato plants in out compost. The one year we actually got tomatoes they were horrible! Ultra acidic.

Various members of the squash family (Cucurbitaceae) are also common. Is this watermelon, zucchini, yellow squash, acorn squash? We'll have to wait and see!

Another squash-family sprout.

This year an onion also started to grow.

It's not only plants that show up in the compost:

An Eastern Box Turtle snacking on leaves in the compost heap.

Red stains around her mouth suggested that our bumper crop of blackberries have been on the turtle menu.

She also showed evidence that a bear had attacked. The orange arrows point to depressions in the shell that look a lot like bear tooth marks.

To be continued...

Mysterious Posts -- Case Solved

Last December, strange looking wood and iron posts started showing up all over the area:

Posts like these started showing up in numerous place in Alleghany County and Covington.

Later, some of them had stonework added, so it was clear they were going to be signs of some sort.

Finally, in April, the final result appeared -- most places.

This one is at the I-64 welcome center just east of the West Virginia - Virginia state line.

Still, the one that we passed every day on way in and out of Clifton Forge just stood there.

About two weeks later, this one was finally completed. It's on a pretty obscure road that looks a lot more passable on GPS than in real life.

Mystery solved. As I learned, this project goes back almost 5 years, but getting permission to put signs along road right-of-ways is a complicated matter!

More Snakes

I hesitate to write this post because I fear that friends and family may decline to visit after reading this ...

Last month I wrote a post about snake skins we've found. Shortly after that post, another large snake skin showed up at the edge of the concrete "patio" under our deck. (Another rat snake skin.)

Snakes are good -- they eat the mice that plague our shed.

Last week, this handsome fella was hanging around:

This rat snake / black snake was about 5 feet long -- possibly the former owner of one of two shed snake skins we've found this spring.

A nice close-up of the head.

Yesterday, while hanging up laundry, I almost stepped on this one:

Lon has seen this snake before -- it has a burrow under the concrete pad under our deck. At first I feared it might be a copperhead (very venomous!), but it's more likely to be a juvenile rat snake which can have this coloration. (The head isn't triangular enough to be a copperhead, and it lacks the two "pits"on the top of the head behind the eyes. I couldn't see the shape of its pupils.)

Today was more disturbing:

Lon heard a timber rattlesnake under the shed while he was getting out equipment. Later, it had coiled up next to the ramp to the shed. It clearly didn't like us coming and going. Lon threw a piece of wood at it and it slithered back under the shed. I hate killing snakes, but if this one continues to hang around, it may have to go.

'Nuf said!