Tuesday, January 20, 2015
YOUNGSTOWN
Video
Mahoning Valley residents are blessed with free access to a park for all seasons, featuring spectacular ice formations and a wide variety of individual and group winter recreation activities. Whether one chooses to drive or hike through Mill Creek Park, or cross-country ski on its golf course, a winter wonderland awaits.
Mahoning Valley residents are blessed with free access to a park for all seasons, featuring spectacular ice formations and a wide variety of individual and group winter recreation activities.
Whether one chooses to drive or hike through Mill Creek Park, or cross-country ski on its golf course, a winter wonderland awaits.
“If you don’t want to get cold, stay in your car and drive through. But if you’re willing to get out and explore, we have one of the best parks in the country,” said Ray Novotny, park naturalist and outdoor-education manager.
“Make sure you bundle up for the weather” to avoid frostbite and hypothermia, advised Carol Vigorito, park recreation and education manager. “Safety is the key to enjoying it, but, absolutely, come out and enjoy it,” she urged.
The most iconic park landmark is Lanterman’s Falls, which, in winter, cascades over a curtain of ice, with giant icicles suspended from the rock faces around its plunge pool.
Other ice formations, however, are visible only by hiking into the Gorge.
Spectacular icicles and thick ice columns are visible to those who hike from Lanterman’s Mill, continuing downstream from the falls on the East Gorge Boardwalk to a large overhanging umbrella rock formation near the downstream end of that wooden walkway.
Small waterfalls plunging over cliffs from the top of the gorge freeze to form ice columns.
The permeability of the Gorge’s sandstone walls lends itself to water seepage that also creates ice formations, Novotny explained.
“That slow action of water lends itself to freezing,” he said.
“The ice builds upon itself as this continues and creates these nature sculptures.”
Because the gorge is shaded from sunlight, the ice formations there are the last remnants of winter to melt.
“It’s kind of like walking into a deep basement, and that ice will hang on for quite awhile,” Novotny observed. “There are cooler conditions there,” he added.
For the safe enjoyment of the park’s natural winter beauty while walking on snow-covered trails with icy patches, Novotny recommends hiking slowly and wearing boots with a substantial tread on their soles, and, if possible, wearing strap-on ice cleats.
Another notable location for ice formations, also accessible only to hikers, is the waterfalls of Cascade Run, a small stream that flows into Lake Cohasset from a ravine on the west side of the park.
Hikers may park in a tiny parking area on the west side of the lake at the foot of High Drive.
They can then walk up the drive, which is closed to motor vehicles in winter, or up a foot trail, to a boardwalk vantage point, from which they can get close-up views of the series of cascades.
The Cascade Run falls can also be reached by parking at the Scholl Recreation Area along Bears Den Road and walking across an athletic field to the access trail.
Aside from offering ice formations visible to hikers, the park has three sledding hills and offers cross-country skiing on its golf course.
The Lily Pond, however, remains closed to ice skating because recent tests have revealed that the ice is not safe for that activity.
Should weather conditions later this winter result in safe ice, park officials have said they will open the pond to ice skating, as they did for several weeks last winter.
“Don’t go out on the ice if you have not been informed [by park officials] that it is safe,” Vigorito warned.
For those wishing to stay warm indoors, Ford Nature Center’s windows offer a close vantage point for watching a colorful array of birds at bird feeders.
Among the birds seen during a recent visit to the center at 840 Old Furnace Road were doves, chickadees, a cardinal, a tufted titmouse, a goldfinch and a downy woodpecker.
The nature center is regularly open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays, and closed Mondays.
An organized “Coffee with the Birds” program will be offered at 8 and 8:45 a.m. Jan. 31 at the nature center, facilitated by Jeff Harvey, president of the Audubon Society of the Mahoning Valley.
Call 330-740-7107 for reservations and bring your own mug.