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The "social" in the camp lodge Friday night. Snacks and a chance to meet old friends and make new ones. |  |
At the social, Heidi and Annalise are nearest the camera, while Anna is behind Annalise. I'm afraid I don't know the name of the woman waving at the far end of the table. |
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Our camp early Saturday morning. |  |
A wider view of the campground with two bunkhouses behind the tents and the showers/bathrooms to the right. |
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Saturday morning's light breakfast. |  |
I'm ready to head out on the Four Falls Tour - the route goes by four waterfalls. |
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The first waterfall is Aunt Sarah's Falls just a little south of Watkins Glen. Is this it? Nope. I t turns out there was so much rain the previous few days that all the small streams were flowing! |  |
Is this Aunt Sarah's Falls? Nope, this isn't it either. After this one, I stopped taking pictures of all the little brooks cascading down the side of the canyon. |
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Finally (it really wasn't that far) Aunt Sarah's Falls. |  |
Another shot of Aunt Sarah's Falls. |
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Shequaga Falls is right in the town of Montour Falls! |  |
Shequaga Falls up close. |
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Steve took this picture of me in front of Shequaga Falls. |  |
Later in the day, Jane got a slightly different view of Shequaga Falls. |
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Jane also got a picture of the sign! |  |
Shortly after leaving Montour Falls (still early in the ride!) our route went onto Havana Glen Road. This road rises 500 ft in a little less than a mile (about 11% grade) and then rises another 450 feet at a shallower grade (see the altitude profile later on). I had to take several rests to get up this hill. The hardest part was getting going again after stopping. My shoes were wet from Shequaga Falls and they wanted to slip off the pedals before I could get my feet in the toe clips! This photo looking back down the road was taken at the top of the steep part (I think), where I took a long rest! |
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Another shot from my rest stop looking back over Montour Falls. I believe one can see Shequaga Falls almost in the center of the picture. |  |
Looking back down the road, there are some other riders coming up. |
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They're getting closer. There's actually three of them, but the middle rider is right behind the front rider. |  |
The first rider arrives. |
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Rider number 2 arrives. |  |
Rider number 3 is still a ways down the hill. Nobody that I saw rode this hill in a straight line! |
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Rider number 3 arrives. |  |
The three were riding together. They rested for a bit and set out again while I continued to rest. |
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When I made it to the top of the hill, I took one more picture looking back towards Montour Falls. |  |
Pretty countryside looking to the southeast. |
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I caught up to Steve who'd had to repair a flat on his recumbent. |  |
Well, I got lost and added about 12 miles to the ride distance trying to find Taughannock Falls. Finally it dawned on me that the detour due to construction was not part of the route and I was able to figure out which way to get back to the route. Here's the pool just upstream from Taughannock Falls. |
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Taughannock Falls (215 ft high). |  |
A closer view of the falls from the slightly lower observation point seen in the previous photo. Those are other people down there!
This is the last photo from the tour. I was pretty far behind schedule due to being lost, so I pretty much stopped taking photos. In addition, it was very hot. So hot that on the chip-seal road just before Ovid, the tar was melting. I got tar and gravel stuck to my tires to such a thickness that it was rubbing against my fenders, brakes, chain stays, etc. When I got off to walk, my shoes stuck to the tar! On the way to Ovid, I was only making about 5 mph. At that pace I wouldn't get back to camp until well after dinner! I certainly didn't want to miss dinner, so when a couple (other riders) offered me a ride back to camp from Ovid, I took it! I decided not to ride on Sunday, because my bike was in pretty sad shape. In addition to being covered with tar and gravel, one of the bearings in the left pedal was going bad. When we got home, it took me a couple of days to clean off all the tar. In case you're wondering, the fourth falls of the Four Falls Tour was Hector Falls which is near the end of the loop. |
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Here's our route (recorded by my GPS receiver) overlaid on a USGS topographic map by GPSVisualizer.com. We went around counterclockwise. The part near Ithaca is where I was lost. (I rode some of that road six times before I got myself straightened out!) The east-west road just before Ovid had the melting tar. From Ovid back to camp was done in a car! |  |
Here's the altitude and climb profile for the Four Falls Loop as recorded by my GPS receiver. The Havana Glen Climb overlaps mile 10. My ride ended at about mile 62 in Ovid. The rest of the route back to camp was in a car. This kept me from trying the steep hill at the end which so far I've had to walk! The Taughannock Falls overlook was just before the steep descent at about mile 45. (Of course, if you weren't lost, it occurred quite a bit earlier in the ride!) |
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Since the GFLBT occurs on the second weekend of June, it's always close to our son's birthday (June 14), so we take the long way home and visit him in the Albany area. We dropped off an old bench which Jeff is helping to remove from the van. |  |
Here's Jeff and me at a "birthday dinner" Sunday evening. |