This morning we drove south of Buffalo NY, about an hour from our campground to Chestnut Ridge Park and the trailhead for the Eternal Flame trail. In the middle of the woods here is a 35-foot waterfall that contains a small, flickering flame in a grotto beneath it. As the story goes, the falls are one of nine natural eternal flames in the world, and are believed to have formed over 350 million years ago during the Devonian Period.
We arrived at the huge parking lot and made our way to the trail head. The 1.2 mile main trail to the falls in Orchard Park, NY was well marked. It reopened in August 2023 after major work, including the addition of box steps and railing which really helped during the significant ascent/descent.
Once you reach the stream there are some pathways on the sides but we found some of the easiest walking was right up the middle of the stream because the waterflow is just a trickle right now.
Soon we reached the gorge and the Eternal Flame Falls. A photographer had set up a tripod for a photo shoot and a young lady was there with her dogs. It is indeed beautiful and quite marvelous!
The fuel for the flame is a natural gas leak from a macro seep, where gas escapes through cracks in the rock. I assumed it was methane as the stream is primarily shale rock. In 2013, geologists from Indiana University Bloomington and Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology studied the falls and estimated that the seep emits about one kilogram (2.2 lb) of methane per day which rises to the surface through opened faults in the land during tectonic activity and emits a rotten-egg smell. Some scientists believe the flame burns because of gas pockets that rise from the extremely hot shale bedrock, which is about 400 million years old. Others believe Native Americans may have lit the flame thousands of years ago.
So we had a nice hike primarily in the shade of huge pine trees. I logged 7272 steps today @ 3 miles. The ascent/descent made it seem like more!
While we were there, annual preventive maintenance was being performed on my General whole home generator system.
Back at the campground I worked on a few maintenance items including washing all the bugs off my front cap from the trip up here. That is never ending! We also grilled some of our Christmas meat, a steak from Hy-Vee. Our kids buy us a meat package each Christmas and it is greatly appreciated!
Tomorrow we may see another firefighter Ally, Tom Taylor, who is camping in the area. Later our friend Matt Steffan will drive up and we will grill some burgers and get caught up on fishing stories!!
No comments:
Post a Comment