On Tuesday, July 28, my family took a hike thru Zoar Valley in Upstate NY. I first visited Zoar (by BIKING the 40 miles from Buffalo) in August of 1978 (FOUR days before my first YES show in Rochester!!), so I guess this marked my 20 year anniversary of that.
I IMMEDIATELY fell in love with Zoar, and visited it as often as I possibly could for my remaining years in Buffalo. I moved to California in 1981 and visited Zoar as our 1st stop x-country {{Deb}}. I returned just once since then - 1984 - 14 years ago to share it with my husband of one year.
WHAT IS IT? Other than THE most gorgeous place in the world? .. I have no clue :-) Seriously, what we call Zoar is a gorge carved out by the Southern Branch of the Catteragas Creek near a small town in upstate NY. It is undeveloped and relatively unknown (I can find NO reference to it on any map). It IS protected however (occasionally 'they' do something right).
I have been to ALOT of streams, swum in a couple of oceans, climbed a couple mountains, but NOTHING, NOWHERE - not the Grand Canyon, Not Yosemite, Not the Na Pali Coast of Kauai, NOTHING has ever touched my heart or MOVED me like Zoar has. Nothing has ever made me feel as ONE with our planet. Has made me .. understand.. the Earth... deep inside me.. like Zoar has.
So after 14 years it was possible to arrange a vacation that would include a day to play at Zoar. Thanks {{{Carol}}} for planting the idea, and {Jonathon} for being kind enough to send a total stranger (who didn't trust her memory) such good directions.
I was very nervous - anxious. The drive took a couple hours and the first thing I noticed was that the little hole-in-the-wall town looked ALOT different than I remembered. Turned left at the McDonalds --- McDonalds??? There was NO McDonalds in there! Then Burger King?? LOL tho Jonathon had 'warned' me about that. The changes did little to relieve my anxiety. Then the road was CLOSED - for repaving - detours everywhere. Ut-oh. This didn't bode well. We forged Onward, scared of detours, down the unpaved road. Asked the road crew for directions at one point cause we thot we were entirely lost, but they were clueless. Fortunately, soon after that we saw the correct road and we were set.
Now the REST of my anxieties could surface... Will it still BE there? (yeah, right, valley's often pick up and move away) Will it still be .. accessible, undeveloped, unpolluted, unknown??? WILL IT STILL BE MAGIC?? Can I go home again?
The weather was beautiful. Some dark clouds threatened a couple times, then saw us and moved onward.
As I first stepped / slid down from the parking area (and helped my kids negotiate the hill) I stopped. Froze. Tears came to my eyes.
It was STILL THERE!!!!! The sounds, the sights, the smells.. Emotions flooded me and my mind was stilled.
This and the following bunch of pictures are various shots on the walk to 'the falls'. I estimate it's about 3 miles upstream, but that's only a guess. It took us (w/ kids remember) about 3 hours to walk to the falls. I suspect that without kids I could do it in just over an hour.
The water carves and shapes the shale that once was the bottom of an ancient sea.
Erin and I taking a break on a 'glacial erratic'.. rock
Why does it take 3 hours to walk here with kids? Because OBVIOUSLY they need to find THE most DIFFICULT path (which does tend to be the most FUN path as well)
Here's Sara scaling the cascade waterfall at one of the first feeder streams. She wandered back there in the woods following it for awhile (looking for faeries and elves i suspect) before she slid back down to us.
Onward and upstream we go
These two pictures show where a large boulder fell around from above, 19 years ago. My first visit here, the rock was 'perched' at the top of the cliff. the next year it had fallen. More rock rubble has added to the pile since and the original large boulder can't be seen as well.
Zoar grows the tiniest toads I've ever seen! Here's Amy (age 4 - small hands) with a fine example of one.
Not a very clear picture, but you can see somewhat the size of the cliff here. That's Charlie and Amy there by the bottom offering some perspective.
Another typical feeder stream - the light is different as I took one picture on the way in and the other on the way out.
A skinny place where the water moves faster.
THE FALLS
The following pictures are all from around the Falls area.
Here's Charlie walking with Amy near the crest of the falls.
Here's a couple guys climbing back up after jumping off the falls into the pool. Getting the kids UP at this point was a challenge, but after doing it the WRONG way once (which included Charlie getting hit by a large rock dropping from the cliff) we learned to take THIS route up the falls.
Here's a close-up taken off to the side of the falls
Here's the falls again - along with the pool at the base. These guys here are indeed spending some time leaping off. We - ummm - opted not to (much to the disappointment of our children) - can you say 'chicken'? Charlie did however take the older children swimming here which included a dip under and behind the falls themselves.
These pictures show the pool above the falls with Charlie and the girls taking a dip in it. (from both the upstream and the downstream side of it)
One of the MIND-BLOWING things to me was watching MY CHILDREN playing AT ZOAR!!!!! Truly a dream come true. Sitting on the same "beach" (ok, it's a rock) that I sat upon 20 years ago. And now to watch my children loving it too!! Amazing!!
Those last three pictures show kind of a panoramic view taken sitting on 'the beach'. THIS, right here, is indeed MY most favorite spot on our planet.
The kids having a snack on the beach. Yes, Sara has cookies on her eyes. We grownups, however, were enjoying warm beer - Still the Official Drink of Zoar (!)
UPSTREAM
If you continue on upstream from the falls you find 2 very beautiful side-waterfalls. The 2nd is the very best of the best - the rocks intricately carved into gorgeous shapes by the water. Our time however was VERY short, and the younger girls were getting very tired. Erin and I started walking upstream, but we had only 15 minutes to walk in one direction and we had to start our return to the falls area so we could all get out of Zoar by darkfall. We hurried, but alas only got just past this, the 1st side falls on the left. It was time to start back. We PROMISED each other that NEXT year we WILL make it to the 2nd falls on the left. (want to join us Deb?)
The following pictures were taken upstream from the falls.
The bottom of the creek taken thru the moving water
Creek and cliff
A cliff wall with a tree growing
The Walk Back
We left the falls area around 5:30 knowing we had a LONG walk back, and knowing that darkness falls QUICK in Zoar. The timing was perfect. We kept the kids moving and made it back in 2 hours. The rest of the pictures are from the walk back downstream.
Here are 2 pictures of the pools directly below the falls. The first is looking downstream, the second, having past the pools, looking back upstream towards the falls. The second photo includes Charlie and Amy.
a weird bulge in the side of the creek
Notice the colour contrasts - between the wall and the deep green pool
area of very flat rocks
rocks in the creek
the sun was gettin low as we neared the end of our hike
a mid-stream falls - one of the last - we're almost back now
and the sun goes down
I want to thank those of you who made it to the end. I hope you enjoyed the site. I know the graphics-intensiveness made it very slow, but I found I didn't want to do this any otherway. My email address is cbounds@aol.com if you have any comments. This was a very special day for me at a very special place and I very much enjoyed reliving it by putting this up on the web. Again, thank you for stickin around. love, tina
