Spring is the season of running water. Earth thaws, comes alive, and is exuberant to start running. Water wants to go!

Last weekend a friend and I made a pilgrimage to flowing water by visiting four waterfalls in the Adirondacks: Auger Falls, Griffin Falls,  East Jimmy Creek Falls in Wells, and Beecher Creek Falls in the town of Edinburg. (I leave any commentary about the names of the Falls to another time, just mentioning that Native Americans name landforms for a quality found in them, not for some dude that stumbled on them or bought them!) 

Auger Falls was cavorting through a gorge in the Sacandaga River. The water frothed and foamed in white and the clear, translucent tea color that the hemlock-stained tannins provide. The rushing, jumping, twirling movement of the river, as it lept from boulders was thunderous.  Watching the course of the water was mesmerizing, even hypnotic! A cool spray rose from the falls. With it came the smell of "cedar water" - a way of describing the tea-colored water that is brewed in the bowels of pines, cedars, and hemlocks. That smell takes me to the shores of the gentle meandering rivers of the Jersey Pine Barrens. That smell is heady; I want to breathe in and fill myself with its mystery. Everything was green and unfurling into spring life.

We lunched by Griffin Falls. The falls cascades through a flume cut in the rocks by eons of water, sculpting and smoothing the borders. The running, pounding water accompanied by bird song was the perfect music for a post-lunch siesta!

East Jimmy Creek Falls was modest as it made its way with less fanfare to its confluence with the Sacandaga.  The creek isn't very wide so we could enjoy the rich mosses and sprouting hellebore that blanketed the banks. 

Beecher Creek Falls was wide and running white and fast. This falls had known labor - it had worked at providing energy for a sawmill. At the foot of the bridge stood an old covered bridge - the Copeland Covered Bridge. It was a quaint setting but I felt a twinge of sorrow for the falls that had become an object of use. However, now it seems to be restored to a place of peace and beauty.

Our ride home meandered near
Sacandaga Lake. It was such a gift to spend the day on our water pilgrimage!

What body of water is a favorite of yours?


 
Photo Courtesy of Tracy Watson








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