Watkins Glen Gorge, July 25

Some of the group chose to go to Watkins Glen on Sunday because it was cloudy which made for good photography in the gorge.  All I could think about was Sunday=Crowds, besides the forecast was for partial cloudiness on Monday.

I had seen signs of a rails to trails bike route from Montour Falls to Watkins Glenn State Park, just about 4 miles one way. .. all flat and mostly on hard packed RR bed, so I did a little research and determined it would be feasible to ride the bikes without a lot of effort  to the park.

Joel and I, along with Nancy and Maynard, headed out early on the bikes stopping in Montour Falls to take a picture of the falls that are right in the middle of town (the falls are not called Montour Falls but some other really long Indian name) and then continued along the trail.

 The only down side about the Catherine Valley Trail is that it bumps you out on the highway a little south of the park so you have to ride a short distance on a busy road.

We all arrived at the park just as it was  opening and much to our delight there was free admission for cyclists, and even better, there were no cars in the parking lot. That was an $8.00 savings that could be spent on ice cream later :).  The Watkins Glen Gorge is beautiful with lots of photo ops.  The good thing was that due to our early arrival there was hardly anyone there and we were able to photograph and explore at our leisure. ..especially since there are 892 steps over about 1.5 miles. The day was partially cloudy which also help make for good photos.

Each water fall has a name and I didn't even try to remember them all.  If you like water falls, you are in for a treat.  My little IPhone worked OK,but the pictures are not as sharp as they would be with my other camera.

I got Nancy and Maynard to stop and pose for a minute while Joel headed on up the gorge.

 One of Maynard's typical poses with Nancy going up a short flight of stairs.

 This reminded me of some of the slot canyons in Arizona, only there was water not sand.

 Note the cracks.  They look like they were cut to relieve pressure.  Really interesting stuff.

 Looking down on the gorge and some of the steps.

We spent over two hours going up and just a few minutes coming down.  Then before returning to Montour Falls, we headed over to the marina in Watkins Glen which sets on the picturesque Seneca Lake

We perused the little town on our bikes and headed back to the Moose Lodge around 1:00.  Did you notice the clouds in the picture above the boats?  They moved in a got darker and darker.  Not ten minutes after we got back, it started to thunder and lightening with lots of hail and wind.  Good thing we didn't stop for lunch.  What a good day doing two of my favorite things: biking and hiking.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we leave for Cooperstown, NY for a quick overnight stop.  Cooperstown is the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Farmers Museum, and the Fenimore Museum of Art.  This ought to be interesting. I'm not a baseball fan and have seen plenty of museum farm stuff.  I sure hope my camera is waiting for me so we will only have to stay one night.