{"id":1867,"date":"2012-08-22T04:22:26","date_gmt":"2012-08-22T08:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.francescaling.com\/scrapbook\/?p=1867"},"modified":"2012-08-22T05:03:04","modified_gmt":"2012-08-22T09:03:04","slug":"buttermilk-falls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.francescaling.com\/scrapbook\/buttermilk-falls\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiking Buttermilk Falls!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

– Ithaca, NY<\/p>\n

Buttermilk Falls is named so because the water cascades over shallow rock beds, making it look buttermilky white. We took a trip down to Ithaca to see them, and get a hike in before the summer ends.<\/p>\n

Have I mentioned how much I love road trips?<\/p>\n

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Which way? : )<\/p>\n

One and a half years in Syracuse… and this was my first trip to Ithaca!<\/p>\n

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Some roadside scenery… for starters, a little yellow tractor!<\/p>\n

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… a tank…<\/p>\n

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I talked to my cousin for a little bit, after driving through Cornell. My first impression was that it reminded me a lot of Berkeley’s campus. Nostalgia instantly hit, and briefly I wished that I had applied to Cornell. (At the time of application, their Masters of Architecture program was non-accredited.)<\/p>\n

I just miss the hills, the trees, having rivers, and the density of the city. Smashing forest with city.<\/p>\n

But that is why we travel! To enjoy places like this.<\/p>\n

When we arrived, the lighting was gorgeous.<\/p>\n

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I snapped a few pictures out of excitement. Then adjusted my light settings. Yay.<\/p>\n

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(can you spot the shoe?)<\/p>\n

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A few weeks ago, I sat at a fountain in downtown Syracuse to play with shutter speeds with water, out of curiosity. Little did I know it was practice for this day!!<\/p>\n

Such textures!<\/p>\n

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The trail follows the river\/falls for a while, then loops you around Lake Treman, up more falls (we took some independent detours), then back down.<\/p>\n

Bottom half of the lake (it’s two lakes):<\/p>\n

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Some wide, flat paths, but my favorite were steep and narrow ones:<\/p>\n

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(legitimate lens flare *winkwink*)<\/p>\n

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Trunks<\/p>\n

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Then the path opened up to a shallow riverbed, in which Andrew declared, “Hunger Games!!”<\/p>\n

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me: *gasp!* “It’s a rock beaver dam!!”<\/p>\n

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Okay, tell me this doesn’t look like a little panda face<\/a> :<\/p>\n

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Back into the woods!<\/p>\n

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This means, “Please come inspect for something cool!”<\/p>\n

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Woohoo CLIFF!<\/p>\n

(kind of hard to tell… I was hoping the scalar shift of leaves would be more telling of the cliffness of the cliff)<\/p>\n

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Towards the end of our detour. We meet lushness again.<\/p>\n

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Sun drops a little more, and we meet gorgeousness:<\/p>\n

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Race up the “steps”! Though halfway up, they jut up awkwardly, extra high – easy to trip on… but neither of us did!<\/p>\n

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I feel like I’m in the Lord of the Rings.<\/p>\n

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Where you meet mystical creatures…<\/p>\n

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Caterpillar was thicker than my thumb!<\/p>\n

(it’s a cecropia caterpillar!)<\/p>\n

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Check out this cutie:<\/p>\n

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Toadally adorable.<\/p>\n

And then, what the heck is this?!<\/p>\n

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Two ladies spotted a bunch of these on this tree. One of them was talking about the bug’s ovipositor, which you can see, is brown and sticking into the tree.<\/p>\n

(I googled. It’s a giant Ichneumon wasp)<\/p>\n

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But then she noticed us and took it out of the tree…<\/p>\n

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Such pretty color.<\/p>\n

We continue the adventure! Starting with, Andrew almost falls off cliff – or – Andrew climbs up cliff!<\/p>\n

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Edge of the upper lake:<\/p>\n

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Wait… back in LOTR?<\/p>\n

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What are these guys doing?<\/p>\n

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It’s not long before we head back to the falls.<\/p>\n

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I picked one of the few dry patches of rock to sit my bum on:<\/p>\n

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I was shooting mostly 1\/125 – 1\/1250 throughout the day. Here is 1\/8.<\/p>\n

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1\/30<\/p>\n

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1\/250<\/p>\n

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“Mountain man pose”<\/p>\n

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I’m not very mountain-man-ish.<\/p>\n

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Buttermilk!<\/p>\n

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Getting closer to the fall…<\/p>\n

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I love how silky it looks.<\/p>\n

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Back to 1\/250<\/p>\n

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Let’s you do this:<\/p>\n

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1\/8:<\/p>\n

I really like this one, and how the rocks are shaped.<\/p>\n

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More playing:<\/p>\n

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I didn’t want to get my shoes wet because they were my running shoes, and I needed them to be dry for my half-marathon training. So, I was standing in the middle of the water on a rock, trying to plan my next move to cross the river… when he noticed my plight and came along to build me a stepping path : )<\/p>\n

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Picnic across the falls…<\/p>\n

Somehow… we picked up a pet rock. His name is Sylvester St[all]one Rocky the IV.<\/p>\n

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Anyways, we three enjoyed this view.<\/p>\n

2 sec exposure.<\/p>\n

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(I went up to 4 sec. but it didn’t make much difference for the water)<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

– Ithaca, NY Buttermilk Falls is named so because the water cascades over shallow rock…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,20,53,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.francescaling.com\/scrapbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.francescaling.com\/scrapbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.francescaling.com\/scrapbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.francescaling.com\/scrapbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.francescaling.com\/scrapbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1867"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.francescaling.com\/scrapbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1939,"href":"https:\/\/www.francescaling.com\/scrapbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867\/revisions\/1939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.francescaling.com\/scrapbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.francescaling.com\/scrapbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.francescaling.com\/scrapbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.francescaling.com\/scrapbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}