A hidden gem in the Catskills

If I were to be completely honest, I will have to address the question of whether or not I will still go out on nature trips if it weren’t for the cool electronic gadgets I get to carry and use. Perhaps best understood by people of my generation, the generation that brought about the personal computer, I cannot shake the habitual thought that every initiative I embark on is centered around finding a problem for my computer—or in today’s more modern parlance, my actioncam, my drone, my tripod, and my mirrorless cam—to solve. I have the latest gadgets and gizmos, now let’s go find something they can be useful for. How about filming waterfalls…

Indeed, the trails, after all, are often long, rarely flat, and with some even un-maintained. Literally, I have to sometimes hack my way through bushes, hop over dead logs, clamber on top of rocks, spend lots of time getting lost, and ford creeks to make my own path like I did when I hiked to Yeagerville Falls where the trail just plain disappeared about halfway in of the nearly mile-long trek. There are also ups-and-downs along the trails so even though, say, a trail is billed as a 200-foot ascent from the trailhead, the AllTrails app which uses the GPS on my smartphone (another cool gizmo) to track my movements will tell me that I actually gained the equivalent of a 500-foot climb. In short, it’s not an easy undertaking to even contemplate about as to get up early at dawn when my whole body would rather remain stuck in bed.

So, is it the waterfall and its higher, spiritual consciousness as some would say, what I am really after? Or is it the desire to play around with my cool, new toys? Are my intents deceptive and not entirely good?

In defense, I could say that over any of the myriad other types of photography—bird, wildlife, insects and miniatures, fashion, still-life, B&W, and architecture (which I also dabble in), I chose instead landscape. And not just landscapes, but ones with waterfalls in them. So maybe there is the naturalist lurking inside of me.

But because we are still in the topic of complete honesty, I will have to say I do not have full faith in that argument. The cameras and other electronics I use are way too cool to be shoved aside and out of—um, no pun intended—the complete picture.

So, to my original question, I do not know myself well enough to come up with an answer.

However, I did have a revealing experience early this year.

Coming to work one morning at the start of spring in my ultra-modern steel and glass building sitting on top of a hill in Blooming Grove, NY, surrounded by hills and nature, I backed my car into a vacant slot in the sprawling parking lot. When I opened my car’s door, I heard the rush of water coming from the huge fountain in front of the building that was for the first time this year turned on. Before even seeing and understanding where the sound was coming from, I instantly felt joy surge within me. Something really nice was just around the corner, it seemed to tell me. It was the same feeling I get whenever after a long and arduous hike I finally hear the sound of a waterfall.

There is a reason why Nature is Mother.

According to the book, “The Origins of Creativity” (2017) by Edward O. Wilson,

“For almost all of the 100,000 years that humanity has existed, nature was our home. In our hearts, in our deepest fears and desires, we are still adapted to it. Ten thousand years after the invention of farms, villages, and empires, our spirits still dwell in the ecological motherland of the natural world … We are earth’s unruly children who left home to make it big in the city.”

I will say, then, that my nature treks, however intentioned they may have been, have made a mark in my soul. They are, on some level, a coming home that in no way can be considered bad at all.

No, not bad at all.