~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
~ 1803 ~ 1882
The stoplight at the intersection of Cedar Crest Boulevard & Broadway reflects in the creek at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania after a fresh mid-March snowfall has blanketed the landscape in this painterly, HDR image I captured in the waning days of winter.
“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
~ 1861 ~ 1941
It’s a late winter gold rush as a beautiful golden hour accented by clouds rushes across the landscape March 1, 2022 at one of the highest elevations of Trexler Nature Preserve, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.
“All good things are wild and free.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
~ 1817-1862
The elk take a winter’s nap in the snow on a beautiful early March afternoon at Trexler Nature
Preserve, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.
The elk live as a herd on the hillsides of the 1,100-acre preserve’s Central Range.
When the late General Harry Clay Trexler established the preserve in the early 1900s, he did it to save the American bison, elk and white-tailed deer from extinction and assure the species’ survival.
A conservationist along the lines of Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir, General Trexler understood the importance of nature and preserving wildlife in its natural habitat.
A successful businessman who amassed a fortune in the timber and cement industries and founded the Pennsylvania Power and Light Company, General Trexler began purchasing small farms in the low hills of Lehigh County in 1906. By 1913, he had transported eight bison and 20 Virginia white-tailed deer to the preserve. The elk followed soon after.
When General Trexler died in 1933, he bequeathed the property to the residents of Lehigh County. Today, the Trexler Nature Preserve is open to the public for passive recreation and nature watching.
~ Jack Kerouac
~ 1922-1969
It’s a moment frozen in time in the soft stillness in the grey of winter, as three orange balls on the water briefly deliver a pop of color in this abstract image I captured in early March along the Ironton Rail Trail, which loops more than nine miles through Whitehall Township, the Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania.
The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20th century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.
In 1996, Whitehall Township purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the Ironton Rail Trail.
