Tuesday, February 28, 2017

A Kittatinny Winter ...


“Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer.”
                       ~ John Muir
                               ~ 1838-1914

The view from the Bobolink Trail, just off the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail) at Lehigh Gap delivers a beautiful vista of both sides of the snow dusted Kittatiny Ridge, also called Blue Mountain, on a winter afternoon.

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.

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.

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. The Bobolink Trail is named for the Bobolink, a representative of the migrant grassland bird species that the Lehigh Gap Nature Center hopes to attract to the refuge’s re-vegetated prairie grasslands.

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Trail Sugar ...



“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”
                   ~ John Muir
                           ~ 1838-1914

Sunset is knocking on the door of a winter day on a serene, snow sugared stretch of the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail) close to the Slatington Trailhead in Slatington, Pennsylvania.

Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

Slatington, established in 1864, is the designated Blackboard Capital of America.



Thursday, February 16, 2017

Silvered Shores ...



“… Silver-white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things …”
                  ~ “My Favorite Things”
      ~ from the 1959 Rodgers & Hammerstein 
           musical "The Sound Of Music"      

A hint of sunset blushes the creek between its silvered shores after a fresh snowfall at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

This beauty will eventually melt into spring, but for now the silver-white winter lingers to paint a quiet, majestic beauty.