Last weekend I visited a railroad cut that dates from the early 1800s. I found this rail trail in Westmoreland, a town that’s North West of here, last year and it has become one of my favorite places to explore because of the many different plants that grow here.
This cut is deep in places and ice had formed where little if any sun shines. If you have ever stood in front of the open door of a walk in freezer then you know what I felt like while taking this photo. It’s nice and cool in the summer and real cool at this time of year.
Some ice tried to stand up to the weak November sunlight but ion this day it was losing the battle, because it was near 60 degrees. All I could hear was the constant drip of water and the crash of falling ice. I took this photo because at times it was like being in an ice cathedral. This reminded me of a niche where a statue might stand.
Instead of spires this cathedral has trees that soar up to the heavens.
Instead of gargoyles many different plants perch atop even the smallest ledges. I thought the one in this photo was a spleenwort called wall rue (Asplenium ruta-muraria) but there is a small brook running all along the base of the rock face so I couldn’t reach it. I’ve been able to get close enough by zooming in on the photos that I took to know that it isn’t wall rue, but I have no idea what it is.
Thousands of liverworts also grow here, seemingly not minding the ice. The small brook kept me from inspecting these up close, too. These plants have grown here undisturbed for almost 200 years and they obviously like it because there are large colonies of them.
This is the small brook that runs along the base of the rock face. It’s just wide enough so you can’t straddle it and just deep enough so you don’t want to step in it. If you jumped it you would run smack into stone, so I’ll wait until it freezes. There were some small fish in it but they were so fast that I couldn’t tell what they were. They might have been brook trout-they like cold water.
Some stones were covered with huge patches of orange lichens that looked like moss. I’ve never seen this one anywhere but here and I haven’t been able to identify it. Many lichens are orange, but none seem quite as hairy as this one is.
Since the railroad ran through here at one time I’m assuming this was a lineman’s shack, or maybe a storage shed. People have torn off the siding to use as bridges to cross the brook.
A lot of ice climbers come here in the winter to climb the huge ice columns that form when the temperature gets cold enough. On this day all of the ice was rotten and falling from the ledges, and I made sure I wasn’t standing under any of them when they let go.
Rotten ice is ice that has frozen and thawed repeatedly or has layers of snow or water within it or has water or air pockets between its ice crystals. Sometimes it’s clear, sometimes grayish, and sometimes white. Vertical hanging ice usually has bubbles in it that are big enough to be seen without magnification. It is always weak and it sounds hollow when it is tapped, rather than solid. When water gets between the ice and the stone that it’s hanging from it can fall very easily and without warning, so that’s a good reason to not stand under it.
Ice isn’t the only thing falling around here. The face of the slab of rock shown in the photo was about two feet wide and the whole thing must have easily been 10 feet long.
A pegmatite grows quickly in the last bits of magma to cool in granite. They are known for their large crystals of what are often semi-precious stones like aquamarine, tourmaline, garnet and topaz. One of the most common pegmatite minerals is feldspar, which can be white, pink or gray. The photo shows part of a large vein of pinkish feldspar that travels through the exposed bedrock here. Many fine mineral specimens can be found in feldspar and I used to spend many happy hours searching for them. I think of it as a soup, with feldspar the broth and the semi-precious crystals the vegetables. Feldspar is a weak mineral that is easily broken and it gives off a very distinctive odor when struck with a steel hammer.
Smokey eye boulder lichens (Porpidia albocaerulescens) are usually a smoky gray color, which is where their common name comes from, but they can also have a bluish tint because of the way their waxy coating reflects sunlight. These are crustose lichens and they form a kind of crust on the substrate that they grow on. The bond between a crustose lichen and its substrate is so strong that it can’t be removed without damaging the substrate.
I found this on the trail and thought that I might as well get some use out of it.
If nature has taught us anything it is that the impossible is probable ~ Ilyas Kassam
Thanks for coming by.
What a beautiful journey through another of nature’s cathedrals and beautifully documented as well, my friend. Never seen such a beautiful salute to the impact even small sections of lichen can have. Some of the images with lichen in the freezing waterfalls remind me of imagery worthy of an old Nature Company poster. Keep up the good work, buddy.
Thanks Patrick. It’s always a pleasure to have you come along.
That rail trail is a great place to explore in any season! You are fortunate to have it close!
i’m glad I found it! I’ve only scratched the surface as far as exploring it goes, so I’m looking forward to having a lot more fun there.
Great post Allen! My 2 favorite pictures are the rotten ice and the smokey eye boulder lichens! I’m hoping to get to Westmoreland very soon. I only have 9 towns left in Cheshire county. With winter fast approaching, I tend to stay a little closer to home.
Thanks Laura. I don’t go too far in winter either. If you email me before you go to Westmoreland I can give you directions to this place. If it’s in January you would most likely run into some ice climbers.
I love old rail tracks. They often have a range of flora much wider than the surrounding land because of the ballast used to lay the sleepers which may be a different rock type. The derelict rail buildings are the icing on the cake for me.
That’s true, I hadn’t thought of the ballast being from somewhere else. When I grew up the tracks near my house had clinkers, or burned coal, for ballast. It was sharp stuff to walk on at times. I like those old buildings too. There aren’t many of them left along tracks here.
The icy stalactites look beautiful, although I wouldn’t want to be too close when they start falling. What an interesting place for a walk.
It’s a great place to walk, and you can go on and on for miles.
If I find myself in Westmoreland next month, I might have to divert to this rail trail (if I have time).
That was a ice finishing touch. 🙂
If you do email me beforehand and I can give you directions. It’s right off route 12 and easy to find.
Abandoned tracks are good for finding rare native plants in this region as well.
I wonder why. You would think that people would bother plants more on rail trails than just about anywhere else.
Well, few people normally walked along working tracks, and few have been turned into walks, at least around here.
I enjoyed the icy pictures.
Thank you. You’ll most likely be taking some of your own before too long.
Your railroad cut looked pretty but I wouldn’t think there was anything interesting to look at there at this time of year. You proved me wrong! I like the idea of trying to find semi-precious stones in a feldspar soup! Our area is limestone but I haven’t even heard of or seen any fossils around.
Limestone is usually a good sign that there might be orchids growing nearby, so those might be your gems.
Beautiful scenery – love the close-up views.
Thank you Mary.
Ilyas Kassam was so right on his lessons of life…
To be honest I’ve neveer read anything by him, Charlie, but I certainly agree with his quote that I used. I go to a bookstore usually once each week so I’ll look him up.
Really nice, love reading your post. 🙂 The rock formations look just like what we have here in the Smokey Appalachian mountains. And you already have icicles!
check out our icicles down at our mountain spring. Sunset and Icicles
Thanks Michael! It looks like the cold is headed well south this year, juddging from your icicles. I hope it doesn’t yurn too cold for too long.
The joke was certainly on me this morning. I saw the title of this post and a vision of our local rails to trails type of trails popped into my head, long, straight, flat, wide, and rather boring as far as trails go. This was anything but boring, from the geology to the specialized plants that have colonized the rocks, it was all very interesting!
Thanks Jerry! We hame some boring ones here too but most at least go thought forest so there seems to always be something worth seeing. Plus it’s an easy hike!
The ice in your shots has a fragile beauty that you have captured so well. I suspect that it takes on a more solid, almost stone-like look when it gets colder. I was intrigued by your discussion of the minerals there, since geology is a topic about which I know almost nothing.
Thanks Mile. Yes, some of these “icicles” will be as big as tree trunks in January. Knowing how the ground I walk on was formed is a subject that I’ve always had interest in, and I learned a lot about geology when I started collecting minerals.
Great job once again. How long have you been doing this blog approach to your findings? I now look forward to the next.
Thank you. Come the first day of spring next year I will have been doing this blog for three years. I’m glad you’re looking forward to reading it.