once there was sun: the Lower MacLeay Park, Portland

once, not so long ago, there was a warm sunny day after a rainstorm, a perfect day for a run through an urban wet forest. the Lower MacLeay is a gateway to Forest Park somewhere in the middle, between the zoo/arboretum complex and the wild ridge above saint johns bridge.
follow the amazing Balch Creek past the remains of a faerie house and up the canopy canyon...to the surprise of the Portland Audobon bird sanctuary. and the trail went on, chirps and big firs and fernhouses

and then taking the wildwood trail down to arboretum, up up hill until the Pittock Acres mansion opens up with that iconic Hooded and Tabored view of the cityscape, making it so worth the hike. rose-patch in front of downtown in front of Mt. Tabor, topped by Mt. Hood hiding behind a cloud. it's all here, in front of us.

miles and miles in black ballet flats: my first autumn day in Forest Park, Portland

...MILEPOST 17 or SO...

on a fallen tree in Forest Park
dewy mush fungus white pod things and longhair moss, green shag carpet and the hollies and ferns along the halloway
Clouds cover today for the first time since I arrived in town
Will today be the beginning of the rain?
I've heard people talk that it is coming, soon
The low constant roar of trucks on Saint Helens Road and Saint Johns Bridge
disappear and slence for a moment - was that the train? I'm deep in a forest.
Wait. the MAX goes through a tunnel deep beneath this Tualatin hill.
...Now I hear voices, human voices, sounds like a radio or phone. (?!)
I'm just taking pictures of mushrooms here, up there glistening in the sun.
what would the deer that ran by say?
I've walked to get here a long way.
Miles and miles in Ballet Flats.
I'm the guard of the fallen trees -
sword as splinter to the tramps
who pass though the moss house of faerys

Miles and Miles in ballet flats.
I walk this far to show you that
I can - alone and guided by no man

Miles and miles in ballet flats
I seek to find you, sister dear
whether playa or Under Ice
I feeel your heart pumping so near

For Faith is still a Flatiron, and I mean the mountain,
just before a quick storm
and Hope is Saint John, waiting for the bus over his bridge
in the rain again at 5 pm
and then there's Other sister, you,
sunning yourself on a piece of the rock you found at the base of an Altar that forms a Bridge
connecting the faerys from here but I've heard youmay fall -
no you'll swing like Wallenda on Tallulah but will NOT fall
if you are walking in Black Ballet Flats!!!

LEAF ERIKSEN
Among the firs which are not really firs, they look more like ferns (cause they're Western Red Cedars)
Ballet Slippers are a gift from the faerys, made by the gnomes.
Oh my, it's getting cloudy, if these shoes get wet, I have to find the Orc to make me a towel in his mill by the river below
(it's polluting the river, but he's a holdout from the old days,
he has a boat and he lives in Oswego and has several Beavers as Maids)
About the park

go forth into the waterfall

GO FORTH INTO THE WATERFALL:
PISGAH and DUPONT forests, on APRIL afternoons


Jessica Powell and Brian Goforth want to bathe in a waterfall as a wedding ritual. Her dress will not just sit in the closet for years after their wedding, wearable but unworn; she will let the water and the rocks rip the dress into a mess of memories. And they will keep the torn dress and the moment. They're just shopping for waterfalls, now.

As I have mentioned, there is a long cluster of waterfalls around the tri-state meeting point of Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, along a long escarpment where the Blue Ridge mountains meets the Piedmont foothills.
Really, there are so many to see, you could spend a four day trip here just visiting waterfalls starting around Tallulah Gorge in Georgia (see "Tallulah" two chapters below) moving up through Brevard, NC. Actually Transylvania County/Brevard calls itself "land of waterfalls."
In the quick warmth of one April Asheville afternoon, I sought a waterfall or more to cool off by, and I was about an hour from the "land of waterfalls." So I arrived near Brevard, at the literal gateway to the Pisgah National Forest (Pisgah ranger district) and stopped at the first waterfall I came to, Looking Glass Falls.
Looking Glass, popular because of its height and majesty yet close roadside access, is where I met Jessica and Brian (pictured at LGF). Their wedding is in July in a town nearby, so they are scouting for the perfect waterfall location, starting here.
People are allowed to play in the pool below this falls, but the rocks just beneath the flume where Jessica's dress will tear are slippery and dangerous. So, they visit their next option, Moore's Cove Falls just a mile up highway 276, where I am also going.
Moore's Cove Falls (both pictures at the top) is about a half-mile hike from the road: smaller, much more private, and you can go behind the waterfall and sit and stay dry! There are several other falls where you can do this, like "Dry Falls" about an hour further west, but this one is close and the afternoon sunlight glowed beautifully through the spill of water off the overhang. It was otherworldly, and so relaxingly cool...
Jessica and Brian seemed to like this place better for their post-wedding dress tearing, and I agree. As they left, I took off my shoes and hopped into the falling flume, standing sprite-like in the sunlight, hair getting wet, basking in the cool and warm of the moment.

After leaving the Pisgah forest district I drove to the also-recommended Dupont (NC) State Forest, a multi-use area of land near the NC/SC border. It's a watershed (Little River), plant and animal wildlife preserve previously owned by the Dupont company, and has suffered from erosion from Tropical Storm Ivan in 2004. There are also several major waterfalls on the premises, including four on the Little River. Before sunset, I was able to visit High Falls...

Triple Falls...


....and Hooker Falls, featured in the film "The Last of the Mohicans."


By now, the sun was setting and the air was already getting cool again.
Looking westward to Brevard and the valley, I pranced away. Hope and safety for a happy couple standing faces to the mist...

For more about Dupont SF:
http://www.dupontforest.com/ecology.asp

For Pisgah NF and those falls:
http://www.pisgahforest.com/photogallery/waterfalls/index.htm