Saturday, February 27, 2010

Birchbank Cascades

Water, water everywhere! What better time to visit falls and cascades than after the 2010 'snowicane'. Here's a little known cascade on Upper White Hills Brook, just off of Birchbank Trail.

Part of the fun of visiting Birchbank Mountain is the journey getting there. You drive north on Birchbank Road past the state park and onto this insane stretch of roadway.

And here's your view of the Housatonic River if you're a passenger (drivers are too busy trying to avoid collapsing pavement and oncoming cars).


Look for parking where the road descends and crosses the railroad tracks.


Birchbank has a flat part along the flood plain and the 'mountain' part, which is the river bluff (click the pan shot above to enlarge).


Lot's of water was coming down the river bank, flooding the trail in couple spots. Water proof boots were a necessity.

Today the floodplain was living up to its name, collecting all the water gushing down the bluff.

We followed the old roadbed past the turnoff for the white trail and came to White Hills Brook. A short climb up the stream brought us to the cascades.

Immediately below the cascades the stream breaks into two during high water. The pan above is looking down from the cascades (click to enlarge).

We saw surprisingly little sign of life - no tracks, not even ATV tracks (ATVs are strictly prohibited but are still a problem).

2 comments:

Dick Skudlarek said...

Do you have a panoramic camera, crop a photo, or did you stitch photos together?

Teresa said...

I use Canon Photostitch. I think it came with one of my former Canons and I just kept it.