Young Dreams ...

“Dream no small dreams.”

    ~ Victor Hugo

   ~ 1802-1885

A beautiful Juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk casts its eye across the landscape from a high perch on a late September afternoon kissed by the autumn sun on the Kittatinny Ridge, also called Blue Mountain, along the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail) at Lehigh Gap, Slatington, Pennsylvania.

The Lehigh Gap is a crossroads where the Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s trails connect two historic trails – the Appalachian Trail and the D&L Trail.

The Appalachian Trail, a foot path, follows the ridge on both sides of the Lehigh Gap, running 1,245 miles south to Georgia and 930 miles north to Maine. Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

Background texture by Jai Johnson added for artistic effect.

Autumn Falls ...

“But memory is an autumn leaf that murmurs a while in the wind and then is heard no more.”

                       ~ Kahlil Gibran

                           ~ 1883-1931

A single autumn leaf rests in the cascading waters of Resh Falls, which flows like silk in harmony with autumn along the Kittatinny Ridge, also called Blue Mountain. I shot this long exposure capture on a beautiful October afternoon at Lehigh Gap along the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail).

The Lehigh Gap in Slatington, Pennsylvania, is a crossroads where the Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s trails connect two historic trails – the Appalachian Trail and the D&L Trail.

Resh Falls is one of the Five Falls at East Penn along a unique area of the D&L Trail.

Railroading has a rich history in the development of lower Carbon County as three railroads went through the Lehigh Gap.

East Penn Township had two of them on its side of the river as the Lehigh Valley Railroad ran along what is now the D&L Trail. The Lehigh and New England Railroad ran parallel about 75 feet higher on the mountain on what is now the Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s Bobolink Trail.

The engineering needed to build these railroads would be a wonder today, but when you consider that they were done a century ago it becomes more impressive. They built pools along the railroad to collect runoff similar to what we now have as detention basins.

These pools still collect water and they discharge the collected water at five waterfalls that can be observed year round when hiking or biking the D&L Trail.

The Appalachian Trail, a foot path, follows the ridge on both sides of the Lehigh Gap, running 1,245 miles south to Georgia and 930 miles north to Maine. Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

Only The Summer Knows ...

“The summer smiles, the summer knows

And unashamed, she sheds her clothes

The summer smooths the restless sky

And lovingly she warms the sand on which you lie

The summer knows, the summer’s wise

She sees the doubts within your eyes

And so she takes her summer time

Tells the moon to wait and the sun to linger

Twists the world ‘round her summer finger

Lets you see the wonder of her arm?

And if you’ve learned your lesson well

There’s little more for her to tell

One last caress, it’s time to dress for fall …”

              ~ “The Summer Knows”

               ~ Michel Legrand

                     ~ 1932-2019

     ~ theme from the 1971 film “Summer of '42”

            

Only the summer knows what the hot and humid breeze is whispering through the trees and summer grasses in this sepia capture of the Bobolink Trail, just off the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail), I shot in the early evening in late July at Lehigh Gap.

In the shadow of the Kittatinny Ridge, also called Blue Mountain, the Lehigh Gap in Slatington, Pennsylvania, is a crossroads where the Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s trails connect two historic trails – the Appalachian Trail and D&L Trail.

The Bobolink Trail connects the D&L Trail with the Lehigh and New England (LNE) Trail about 1.2 miles north and west of the Osprey House at Lehigh Gap Nature Center. It is named for the Bobolink, a representative of the migrant grassland bird species that Lehigh Gap Nature Center hopes to attract to the refuge’s re-vegetated prairie grasslands. 

The Appalachian Trail, a foot path, follows the ridge on both sides of the Lehigh Gap, running 1,245 miles south to Georgia and 930 miles north to Maine. Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.