Alexandersmap

    Tag: Niagara Falls

    • In the Ripple

      “Men see God in the ripple but not in miles of still water. Of all the two-thousand miles that the St. Lawrence flows—pilgrims go only to Niagara.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      As a pilgrim to many a waterfall, including Niagara, I know the call of white water. Isn’t it thrilling to experience the power of water channeled into a plummet? Yet Niagara herself is only a fraction of what she was before most of her water was redirected to hydroelectric power. It turns out that I’m keen on productivity too, and appreciate the clean energy even as I wonder what those falls felt like before they were diminished.

      We focus so much on the ripple we’re making that we forget that a pond was beautiful before the splash is made at all. Deep down we know that those still waters may still be here for what feels like eternity, but humans don’t have that kind of timeline. We feel a compulsion to do something in our time. If it any wonder we’re attracted to the ripple?

      Action is thus our call. Sometimes it’s in service of the harvest; productive and purposeful. Often it’s merely busyness for its own sake, as if churning the waters enough will make up for direction. The thing is, it’s no secret that water that’s been churned up is often murky. To bring clarity we must also have stillness. All this busyness in our lives doesn’t lend itself to insight or revelation.

      I grew up in New England, where great mill cities were built with the power of channeled water. In the spring when the waters are flowing quickly it’s not difficult to maintain momentum in the mills. But after the waters recede, the mills have difficulty getting enough power. So the mill engineers built giant reservoirs to help regulate the flow of water for optimal performance.

      We run ourselves dry if we don’t pause now and then and gather ourselves. We must learn to settle into our stillness and see what it brings. We may find our creativity flows far better when we fill our own reservoir. Seeking out balance in this way brings us to sustained productivity and the ripple we wish to make, and also to revelation and purpose, that we may find the right channel for our power.

    • Dancing with an Elephant, Darwinism and Missing a Ghost

      In Buffalo for work, I debated dancing with an elephant or walking in the footsteps of a ghost.  With better planning I could have done both.  They say we all have one life, and to make the most of the opportunities you’re presented with.  I confess to not taking full advantage of that over the years.  The way the day was shaping up, I had the opportunity to hit a couple of local points of interest while in the area.  Or work a little more at my desk in the hotel.  I know which I’d regret on my deathbed and chose wisely.

      Niagara Falls is a well-known elephant that everyone should dance with at least once in their lives.  I’ve danced with the falls on several occasions before.  But I’d never gone there in winter.  So I got up and out of the hotel early and drove out to Prospect Point at Niagara Falls State Park.  I walked in with one of the park employees who was going to work.  The park is open 24 hours a day but on a cold, wet morning in late November who the heck is going to go there pre-dawn?  Only the security patrols know for sure.  And in the Niagara Falls neighborhood, I’m sure they have some doozies.  I’m probably on that list now myself.

      The view of the American Falls from Prospect Point is spectacular.  This was the dance with the elephant that I’d had in mind when I debated the side trip the night before.  With a distinct chill in the air, the mist rising from the crashing falls was beautiful.  This view alone was worth the 20 minute drive out from the hotel.  And perhaps I should have stopped on this high note.

      I should mention that while I was in the car, I’d contemplated putting on either the boots I’d brought with me or the running shoes that I had for the hotel treadmill I ignored.  I also scrutinized the winter hat and gloves that I’d brought for this weather.  In a move of questionable, Darwinian logic, I chose to just keep my dress shoes on and skip the hat and gloves.  After all, I was only going to be there for a short time before I went to my first meeting of the day, so why take the two minutes to change shoes?  And why get hat head before your meeting?  This is the very logic that precedes business tourist tragedies.

      My first clue that my logic was bad was when I hit a patch of ice walking to view the falls at the American Falls viewing area.  The park service did a decent job of clearing and salting the walkways, but things melt overnight and refreeze, and that’s exactly what I found with my leather soled dress black shoes.  But I pressed on and had a nice photo of the falls to post on Instagram.  Mission accomplished?  For the responsible, reasoned and experienced traveller for sure.  In this moment I omitted responsibility and reason and thought to myself, if you got this spectacular picture at Prospect Point of the American Falls, imagine how good a photo you might get over at Terrapin Point of the Horseshoe Falls?

      Looking over at Goat Island and then down at my footwear, I had another moment of false hope for my future where I thought that no, this wouldn’t be a good life choice.  Go back to the car, drive over to Goat Island, put on better footwear and then if you’re still insistent go see the Horseshoe Falls.  Better yet, go get a coffee and celebrate having this small victory.

      Instead I pressed on, shuffling across the frosted sheet metal of the pedestrian bridge, hands pressed deep in my coat pockets against the cold, and over to the very quiet Goat Island.  The few tourists I did see were dressed in winter-appropriate clothes and footwear, and were certainly wondering who the idiot was dressed for a sales meeting shuffling about on a cold morning in Niagara Falls.  I was wondering that myself.  But since I’d come all this way, I was going to get that picture at Terrapin Point, damn it, as a reward for my stubborn persistence.

      In the back of my mind from the moment I thought up this idea the night before, across the frozen tundra and the treacherous white water of the American Rapids, and then shuffling along the icy walkways where the mist from the falls froze on the paved paths, that there’s no way that the park service would have Terrapin Point open.  It would be way too dangerous having tourists on a sheet of ice inches away from the falls.  People die in summertime when they lean over too far to take a picture.  In winter?  Forget it.  Self-selection is a great theory but who’s going to clean up the mess?  No chance at all it’s going to be open.  And sure enough…

      I laughed to myself, or rather at myself and shuffled the 20 minutes back to where I parked my car where I toweled off my black dress shoes and cranked the heat to the highest setting.  I’d survived my flawed logic and can laugh at myself, but I know I was pretty lucky for a dumb ass business traveller.

      This ill-fated side trip to Terrapin Point ate into the available time I had for my dance with a ghost.  So saved for another day is a stop at the plaque memorializing the spot where President McKinley was assassinated at the Pan-American Exposition on September 6, 1901.  I’d come across the McKinley Memorial in Canton, Ohio several years ago and was struck by his story.  So learning about this small memorial in Buffalo was almost as alluring to me as going to see the falls.

      The Pan-American Expo was a big deal at the time, and there was a big fight for it between Niagara Falls and Buffalo.  Due to better transportation options in Buffalo and maybe some political muscling, Buffalo won out.  The Exposition showcased technology like X-Rays and electric lights, things that they neglected to use to save the President when he was shot by an anarchist at the Temple of Music.

      Like most expos, the buildings were torn down long ago, and that site is now a neighborhood with a small median of grass where the memorial is.  It’s nothing like the spectacular waterfalls I saw.  But there’s a whisper of history there that I’d like to feel on another day.  How many such memorials do we breeze by, not realizing the stories and the lives of those that came before us?  I’m not a “ghost” kind of guy, but I like to walk in the footsteps of history and better understand those who stood there before me.  Capra on Wednesday on Bridge Street in Seneca Falls, McKinley on Fordham Street in Buffalo was to be Thursday.  But alas, adventure is time-consuming and my career called me back to reality.  Perhaps another day.

    • A Quick Hike Along the Niagara River

      A Quick Hike Along the Niagara River

      Niagara Falls rightly gets most of the attention from visitors to this corner of New York.   The Niagara Falls State Park is the oldest state park in the United States and looking around I’m grateful for those who preserved this area from souvenir shops, off track betting, casinos and parking garages that would otherwise grind right up to the edge of the falls.  Americans need to be protected from themselves and state and national parks are one way to keep the wolves at bay.

      I’ve visited Niagara Falls half a dozen times in my life and appreciate the power and beauty of the falls every time I see them.  I’ve seen the whirlpool from the Canadian side but that’s akin to walking on the boardwalk at the beach.  You see similar stuff but you don’t get any sand in your shoes.  There’s an elevator on the Canadian side.  Taking an elevator is not my idea of getting outdoors.  So with that as my experience with the Whirlpool, I’d never thought much about going downstream on the American side until a friend raved about it.  I found an opportunity to do that hike yesterday afternoon after meetings in nearby Tonawanda (To the Native American tribes who lived in this area Tonawanda meant “swift waters”, today it means “land that the power lines run through”)

      Whirlpool State Park and Devil’s Hole State Park are the next links in the chain of state parks that line the Niagara River downstream from the falls.  Opened in 1928 and 1924, respectively, they each remain largely what they were at that time and thus have that old park nostalgic feel to them.  Massive old trees line the upper trail that hugs the cliff line.  Old stone staircases, recently rebuilt, are largely the same one’s from when the parks opened.  Descending the staircase at the Whirlpool State Park you can hear the white water well before you reach the bottom of the stairs.  Glimpses of fast moving green and white water greet you through the trees as you make your way down.  As I descend I’m mentally calculating how many of these steep steps I’m going to have to climb back up on my return.

      At the bottom you have the choice of left for upstream or right for downstream.  I took a left and followed the Whirlpool Trail.  This trail follows the river to the wild whitewater that flows from the falls upstream.  It reminded me a lot of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon.  Steep cliffs with rock falls, arid climate with a powerful, fast-moving river next to you.  It was late afternoon on a weekday, so I was passing people hiking the trail but never felt like it was too crowded.  A few college kids were sunbathing and smoking pot and doing whatever college kids do to pass a summer day.

      The Niagara River just below the falls is 170 feet deep, apparently as deep as the falls are tall.  Further downstream the depth at the whirlpool is 125 feet deep.  That rise combined with the narrow gorge, some twists and turns in the river and the sheer volume of water trying to muscle its way through this tight channel creates a chaotic white water scene that’s breathtaking.  The green water boils into a frothy, bubbling eruption as it roars by.  This is first class white water and I laugh when I see the no swimming signs.  Swimming in this water would be almost as dumb as standing on the railing upriver to take a better picture of the falls.

      The trail running alongside this wild river is rocky and you need to watch your footing in this stretch.  Memories of similar hikes in Sagres, Portugal, Camelback Mountain in Phoenix and the side trails of the Grand Canyon came back to me as I worked my way through a few particularly rocky stretches.  The overhanging cliffs in the gorge felt very similar to the canyons out west, and the heat of the day reinforced that impression.  The Canadian side at the river level is heavily wooded as well, and I could easily see this landscape as largely unchanged from the days before European explorers walked these paths.  The only thing that betrayed the changes were crumbling concrete walls and paths from a century ago.

      Still, this was the Niagara Falls region and even in this pristine environment the illusion was eventually encroached upon by power boats and jet skis running the rapids, an overhead tram line, zip lines and buildings overlooking the white water on the Canadian side and further upstream on the American side.  Pristine beauty is nice and all, but it’s better when you can sprinkle a little profiteering on top.  I was thankful there wasn’t a Margaritaville food truck parked on a barge along the path.  Maybe they save that for the weekend traffic.  Anyway, rather than going to the bridge I decided to turn around before the end of the trail and backtracked to the staircase, where I then continued onwards along the Devil’s Hole trail.

      If the Whirlpool trail is notable for the rocky trails and white water, the Devil’s Hole Trail is notable for the cooling shade and relatively flat terrain the trail follows between the river and the escarpment.  The path is an old Seneca Indian portage trail, and they fought several battles along this ground trying to preserve that access for themselves.  In 1763 a wagon train was ambushed near this spot and 80 British soldiers and settlers were massacred.  That story seems to have faded into history.

      As you hike the trail you come across caves of varying sizes.  One of these caves is called both the “Devil’s Hole” and also the “Cave of the Evil Spirit” as bad luck seems to befall those who go into it.  I’m not sure whether that’s true or not, as I wasn’t inclined to do any spelunking on this particular trip.  Locals tell stories of rattlesnakes living in the caves but nobody seems to have ever really seen one.  If there are indeed rattlesnakes the chipmunks didn’t get the memo.

      I hiked up out of the gorge using the Devil’s Hole staircase that delivers you to the parking lot of that state park.  This staircase wasn’t as steep as the one at Whirlpool State Park, but got my heart rate up anyway.  The escarpment is very steep and the stairs switch back several times on the climb.  Reaching the top I followed the Niagara Gorge Rim trail back to the Whirlpool State Park.  This trail had some great views of the river and Canada and was wide and flat.  A few points along the way offered perspective on the lower trail and the power of the river.

      These state parks are a lovely buffer from the beat up poured-concrete roads, tired tourist culture and power infrastructure that make up much of Niagara Falls, New York.  The American side doesn’t have the views of the falls that you get on the Canadian side, but it’s still a breathtaking landscape worth visiting.  Hopefully some of the billions of dollars New York is putting towards Buffalo reaches the City of Niagara Falls, New York.  The city could use a face lift to make it a more attractive destination.  But the parks do their part year in and year out.  With no charge for parking or entry into the parks, it’s a great bargain for anyone looking for some exercise away from the crowded railings overlooking Niagara Falls.  For me, it was a nice way to cap off a week of travel and get some exercise before the long drive home.