To Turners Falls, And Beyond

Swift Rivers

A local blogger's wife recently suffered an aneurysm, and their family is now dealing with the sudden life changing experience. None of us are guaranteed immunity to such changes, and his brave way of dealing with the situation has got me wondering again about it all...

Although three of my four grandparents have passed away over the decades, my immediate and extended families have been extremely lucky as far as illness and tragedy goes. But the last several years have begun to bring home the realities of the other side of our existence.

Three years ago I was basically a useless bag of poop layed out in a hospital for eight days, in the midst of a two month bout with a fierce case of pneumonia, not entirely sure whether I was going to come out of it the same or even live through it for that matter; and since then have never seemed to fully recover. For me it was a brush with death, or at least with the specter of long term debilitation.

A couple of years earlier an uncle had suddenly suffered a major, debilitating stroke in the golden years of his life, changing the course of his family's lives. More recently, another uncle had died after a long and painful fight with cancer.

Just a couple of weeks before him (now a little over a year and four months ago), my Mother, who had struggled for years with symptoms of Parkinson's and (I suspect) depression, passed away unexpectedly in a hospital after a simple cyst removal procedure. She had just turned 65.

Health and happiness are such fragile things. To stop and really think about it opens the door to an endless depth of questions, and most all of them variations on the one, main question: "Why are we here, anyway?". We might come up with some simple answers to get us by and ease the pain and confusion; or leave the question on hold. But we never really know.

Even before these things happened, after several wasted years of my own youth that could have been better spent and that I'll never get back again; a day had come along when I resolved to try not to waste another precious hour wallowing in self pity, depression, regret or resentment. To try not to waste it, anyway. That's all anybody can do. To help me in that effort and seize what (God) has temporarily afforded us, I try to spend as much time out in his world as possible.

Sometimes, I'll bike through it.

We headed up to Turners Falls for a revisit to the CanalSide Trail they got up there. We had only checked it out once before, shortly after it's opening in the fall of 07'. No greenery on the trees yet but we figured it'd be a good way to get a look at the raging torrent that the Connecticut river has become, after the recent global warming storms that have struck the northeast. (sorry).

And a torrent it was. The rail trail doesn't get too close to the famous Turners Falls dam, but you can get a view of the immediate aftermath of the water pouring over it's top near the bridge.



The trail does go along the canal that begins at the dam though, and standing on one of the short bridges over it will give you a sense of the speed and strength of the current plowing by just inches under the deck.



Turners Falls was more or less a 'planned' industrial center, ala Holyoke, with the canals designed and built expressly to power as many factories as there was room for.



Many of the factories buildings are still standing along it's edges.



With all the talk about green power, I'm always surprised we don't tap more heavily into the 400 mile long energy machine that is the Connecticut river. Good old fashioned water power. There must be a way to build water turbines that are every bit as effective as wind turbines that can be turned by the constant water current.



But I guess until Wall Street finally speculates fuel prices into the double digits, we'll just continue to grit our teeth and fork over the money until the whole kit and kaboodle crumbles...



Or maybe move to this street.



The trail was just as good as we remembered it, though a little on the short side; about four miles end to end. But with the canal at the beginning...



...a long, classic 19th century rail bridge in the middle...



....and an active rail yard at the end,



this short trail provides much to keep a traveller and lolligagger interested.



...and much to keep the occasional trailside critter curious.



The whole thing is a mystery to be travelled through. Best to keep pedalling.

Passenger Seat

Work at the Carew St. water main break continues, with several old sections of pipe being removed and replaced with sturdy new sections...



I presume this section of water line, or one very similar, is the 24" culprit that had cracked open and raised all the havoc...



Clean water on tap is one of the greatest and one of the most taken for granted benefits of the developed world. I remember going to a concert a few years ago by the band Cake, who were fresh from a tour of the planet. In between songs, the lead singer stopped to talk about how just simply having clean water was so incredibly important and so incredibly rare in most of the world. Even rarer, was to have it at the turn of a faucet. He finished the short speech by leading the crowd with three hearty cheers...for the spigot. It came off like he meant it too; funny but thought provoking at the same time. I also remember reading in a book on modern warfare where one strategist said that any country no matter how great and powerful can be brought to it's knees in just three days by simply controlling or destroying it's water supplies, since no one can live more than three days without water.

So let's hear it for the mighty spigot.

My pro-photographer sister came by this week to take some pictures of the pea-pod for some baby announcement cards she's making to send out to friends and family.



Her website is on the blog-roll on the right, Carrington Creative Photography, should anyone need to avail themselves of her services...

We scooted north on Sunday looking for a mobile to suspend over the little girl's bassinet, and somehow ended up in the Greenfield/Montague section of the valley. I rode shotgun, and shot up the countryside en route...





We stopped for lunch in Greenfield and checked out a store called the Magical Child, before heading over the river into the old mill town village of Turners Falls, in the town of Montague...



We didn't find any children's stores there, but we did come across an odd little childrens' sculpture park.



On one corner are two old doors from a fire station adorned with painted styrofoam disks created by local elementary school kids, and there's an optomistic looking stryrofoam face watching over the park from a nearby rock.



The rest of the little park has sculptures created from old bicycle parts, perhaps in keeping with the new canal-side trail (pdf map here) that's just been completed right nearby. I think they are sculpted to resemble plants and animals, and maybe dinosaurs.





Some of the sculptures are looking pretty down and out, some having apparently been worn down by the past winter snows,



and some apparently by vandals.



It's an odd little park, in an odd little village; but it represents one of the seedlings being planted here as part of a slowly growing arts community replacing a long defunct mill-town environment. The new trail, a new performance theater, and a new contemporary photography museum are part of the small waves being quietly generated, hoping to create a new chapter in this village's long history. Here's a good Boson Globe article about the village's past and future...



We will be checking the village out more this summer, at the very least the canal-side trail again. For now it was time to head back, with great skyscape views from the passenger seat....

Fall Back, to Montague

There's a new rail-trail in the valley. It's a 4 mile section of the developing 44 mile long Franklin County Bikeway. http://www.frcog.org/services/transportation/trans_bikeway.php

This 4 mile section is called the Canalside Trail. It's located along old factory canals in Montague. They had recently completed the final phase here. Even though it had gotten cloudy Sunday afternoon, we headed up to scout it out.


The trail begins on the Montague side of Barton's Cove, where there is a parking area and a waterside park. There was some kind of photo-meet going on, there were a lot of kids with tripods and cameras there on Sunday.



Don't ask me what this thing is...



The trail goes by the Turners Falls Bridge, and the Great Falls Discovery Center and Unity Park. Unfortunately the Discovery Center was closed when we were there.


The trail goes by a fish viewing area, then follows the canal.




The trail is nicely done, with tall black metal and wood fencing to keep people out of the canal. There are old factories on the other side. Farther on the canal gets wider, and the trail runs along some power lines. The land is nicely cleared, and the woods thinned out in this section. There were tons of Canadian Geese sitting in the water when we went by.




The first half of the trail suddenly seems to come to a halt at Montague City Road. There are no signs to direct you to the next section, yet. If we didn't know the trail was 4 miles, we would have thought it ended there.

We crossed over and down a side street on the other side. Down another street and past this old water tower, we saw where the trail continued on.

The trail from here is much more wooded and peaceful. The trees form a canopy above, very much like the Norwottuck trail in Hadley. Also very much like the Norwottuck is this railroad bridge converted to trail use. It spans a quiet stretch of the Connecticut river. According to a plaque, it was built in 1936.



Not too much farther and you reach the end. The trail empties out into a big train yard. You can go right up to the tracks and watch the trains roll by. These three engines were heading out when we got there.





In this age of liability and litigation, I'm guessing it won't be long before the rail yard is fenced off, for our own safety of course.

We headed back.

The trail was, overall, impressive. It had elements of the Norwottuck trail with the bridge and canopy of trees, the Eashampton Manhan trail with it's easy 4 mile length and fencing throughout. It even kind of reminded me a little of the Cape Cod trail, with the canal running alongside, (though much smaller and sans the boats).

The canal and rail-yard give this trail it's own distinctive character. It's another option for some outdoor activity, and a nice addition to the growing list of rail trails in the valley.

"By a rather circuitous route"

On Sunday, we went out for a drive after lunch, and headed north up through Sunderland, and on into Montague. Plenty of color along the way...

Going through South Hadley, I noticed the restaurant 'Woodbridges' appears to be empty and undergoing some changes. It is located just across from Mt. Holyoke College. I ate there once a long time ago. They had tables outside, real nice.


Also on the way, on a side road in Sunderland, is this cool waterfall. Unfortunately (for visitors), it is on private property. You can easily see it from the road though, and the property owners on either side didn't seem to mind when we stopped and gawked.


We continued on this nice country road. I saw an old Datsun 280Z sitting in a clearing by a house. I had one just like it years ago. It was an incredibly cool, fun car. A poor man's corvette. Half the car is engine. This one was begging for a restoration. It had been sitting here for a long, long time though. A LOT of work to be done.


Moving on, the road emptied out onto a main road, and at the corner was the famous 'Book Mill'. We stopped in, I hadn't been there in years.


It is what the name implies; an old mill converted to a book store, with a cafe next door. The lower floors have been converted (i think) into a dining hall. We couldn't go down to the lower levels as there was a wedding going on. A beautiful building, with a roaring brook behind it, and many decks and tables all around. Excellent book-browsing atmosphere.

These bikers had been shadowing us the whole time we were stopping and going on the back road. They caught up and stopped for a rest nearby.


From there we continued on up to Montague, and Turner's Falls. Took a left after the bridge, and parked in a lot along Rt. 2 where you have a great view of the dam there, next to the bridge.

Turner's Falls is named after a Captain Turner. In 1676 he led a group of soldiers here on a raid to recover stolen cattle from the natives. You can read the full story of the massacre and reprisals that ensued here: http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/massacre.html

The river was low today, a lot of the riverbed here was exposed. We climbed down the embankment, and onto the rock below.

There a lot of drift wood around the edge of the exposed rock, marking the maximum height of the river when it's full. The edges are all smoothed out and the wood is bleached from exposure to the sun and the tumbling along the water.

I'm no geologist, but I found the rock formations on the riverbed interesting. I could see that there was Basalt (lava) rock along the outer edges, and sedimentary rock jutting out diagonally from the bottom.

We walked right up close to the gates of the dam. Supposedly they sound an alarm before the gates are opened. (My escape plan involved little more than "RRUUNNN!!!")

Fossil??

Pock-marked Basalt. I guess the softer sediments in the lava were washed away over time...?

On our way back up this man appeared. He was on his way down to the dam, with some kids in tow and a miner-type chisel in his hand.

It turns out he is Jim Aronson, a Professor of geology at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. He had come down from New Hampshire "By a rather circuitous route", to Turners Falls to examine the rocks we were just on. He was pleased to see that the rock was exposed today, and that they had arrived with time to examine them.

He happily answered a couple quick questions I had about the rocks here, and went on his way, chipping off and showing the kids samples of Basalt.

We started heading back, and along the way saw some hot air balloons landing ahead of us. We saw several cars pulled over, and stopped to see a balloon being taken apart, with a crowd of spectators around watching.

The owner of the balloon, a self described 'Huckster', started recruiting the people around to help take the balloon apart and put it back on it's trailer. I was one of the recruitees.

The basket was kind of heavy, 7 of us struggled with it over the corn-rows. (maybe I should have used both hands).

Once the basket was on the trailer, we went back for the 'balloon' part. It had to be picked up bit by bit and stuffed into a giant duffel bag. Ever hear that saying about 20lbs of 'stuff' in a 10lb. bag? Multiply that by $30,000 worth of nylon fabric.

Unbelievably, like a magic trick, the whole balloon fit into this bag.

We all sat on it in a circle to squeeze the air out, then carried it back to the truck.

The whole kit and caboodle fit on the back of a small trailer.

In case anyone needs a reminder just how big these balloons are, here's a quick video of another balloon that was on the other side of the field, tethered to a truck. They were giving short up and down rides.

That was it for daylight. We stopped for a coffee in Northampton on the way back, and reflected on our afternoon.