Decker's Creek

Today was my first bike excursion of the year.  Knowing what kind of shape I'm in -- basically, round -- I got dropped off at Masontown and took the rail trail downhill from there.  Before doing the downhill run, I rode just a little way up the trail, where the ground is relatively flat and the creek snakes under a series of bridges.  I heard choruses of peepers, but the only thing I actually saw was a snapping turtle the size of a dinner plat sunning itself on a log.

The turtle had the right idea, because it was cold up there on the mountain! When I started back on the downhill run, I saw patches of snow as well as icicles on the rocky overhangs.  The only blooming plant life at that altitude was coltsfoot.

I was backpacking my latest zoom lens and tripod in hopes of getting down to Decker's Creek at the same place I did last year.  Not sure how I managed to miss the spot, but I did.  After I got all the way down to where my car had been left off for me, I drove back up toward Masontown and pulled over to the side of the road where it looked like I could reach the creek.

It started as a wretched undertaking.  On the way down the ravine, I skirted all kinds of recently deposited garbage.  Luckily for the cold, I wasn't too worried about running into snakes, because the place looked like it would be crawling with them in warmer weather.  Soon, I found something that looked vaguely like a trail, and I made it down near the cascades.

Here are two different angles of the same falls:

These were both shot at a slow speed, using a variable neutral density filter and a tripod.

I think that there were even better cascades just downstream from this one, but I wasn't channeling my inner mountain goat today.   As it was, I was huffing and puffing like an old man by the time I got back up to the road again.

Don't say it!

Trip details, via MotionX-GPS on my iPhone:

Name:		Track 012
Date:		Apr 6, 2013 11:13 am
Map: (valid until Oct 3, 2013)		View on Map
Distance:		13.0 miles
Elapsed Time:		1:16:59
Avg Speed:		10.1 mph
Max Speed:		17.6 mph
Avg Pace:		5' 54" per mile
Min Altitude:		845 ft
Max Altitude:		1,842 ft
Start Time:		2013-04-06T15:13:38Z
Start Location:
	Latitude:	39º 33' 14" N
	Longitude:	79º 48' 12" W
End Location:
	Latitude:	39º 37' 06" N
	Longitude:	79º 55' 27" W