Category Archives: Watershed

Ithaca Boat Tour on Cayuga Lake

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Take a virtual tour of the south end of Cayuga Lake on the MV Haendel with Ithaca Boat Tours, complete with plenty of visualizations, video, historic photos, and more! Watch it here online, or on TV in the Ithaca, NY area.

Explore the geology, history, and ecology of Cayuga Lake, longest of the eleven Finger Lakes in central New York State. Steamboats, railroads, glaciers, waterfalls, cliffs, ancient oceans, mountains, fish, invasive species, state parks, lakeshore hotel, Ezra Cornell, lighthouses, water birds, gorges, rockslides, floods, fires, the Erie Canal, and more!

This is episode 111 of Walk in the Park, our weekly public access TV show on Time Warner Cable channels 13 & 97.3 in Ithaca, NY. See our weekly schedule. And see all of our episodes on this video blog.
Produced by Owl Gorge Productions, copyright 2015. See our books about Watkins Glen State Park and about Ithaca.

From Forest to Sea

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In this episode (#110) of our weekly community access TV series in the Ithaca, NY area, “Walk in the Park,” our journey begins at a glacial boulder in a brook, pouring over waterfalls and past a log-jam to Cayuga Lake, longest of the eleven Finger Lakes in central New York State. Eventually we reach the Great Lakes and finally the ocean.

Our next story takes us to another of America’s 36 “Grand Canyons,” this time the Quechee Gorge on the Ottauquechee River, the “Grand Canyon of Vermont,” which in its own turn flows to the Connecticut River and finally the Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.
We round out our program with looks at things going on from the Rocky Mountains to the Smokies to the canyons of Utah.
You can watch the whole show right here or on Ithaca community access TV at the times and channels listed below.

Walk in the Park shows on community access TV in the Ithaca area on Time Warner Cable channels 13 & 97.3 on Thursdays at 9 PM, Saturdays and Sundays at 10 AM, and Tuesdays at 8 PM.

Owl Gorge Productions. Take a look at our books about the region.

Woods and Waterfalls!

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Walk in the Park episode 109. On TV and online here!

Frequent heavy rains have swollen the creeks of the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York and filled our waterfalls to capacity. We look at the big waterfall in Taughannock Falls State Park in Trumansburg, NY on west side of Cayuga Lake, and at Ludlowville Falls in Salmon Creek in Lansing, NY on the east flank of Cayuga Lake. Then we head into the woods at Kingsbury Woods Conservation Area in the Town of Danby south of Ithaca, NY, owned by the Finger Lakes Land Trust, including considering damage from a tornado in 2011. And we watch hikers hurry while drenched in a downpour in Buttermilk Glen along the Gorge Trail in Buttermilk Falls State Park in Ithaca. Finally, we resume our look at “Grand Canyons” across the country, this time going to the Great Gulf Wilderness in White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, in the Presidential Range including Mt. Washington, the highest summit in New England.

Walk in the Park episode 109. Produced by Owl Gorge Productions at PEGASYS Studios in Ithaca, NY. Walk in the Park is a weekly local public access TV series. You can see all of our episodes and other videos on our video blog, and see our schedule of cablecasts on Ithaca Time Warner Cable channels 13 & 97.3.
Check out our popular books, ITHACA-the CITY, GORGES, and COLLEGES, and A WALK THROUGH WATKINS GLEN: WATER’S SCULPTURE in STONE.

Flash Flood!

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A flash flood ripped through gorges in the southern Finger Lakes New York on Sunday, June 14, 2015. In this episode (107) of Walk in the Park, we focus on damage done in the upper portion of Robert H. Treman State Park in Ithaca, NY. We also look at flood waters at Buttermilk Falls State Park and Watkins Glen State Park and at a tornado that damaged the campground at Watkins Glen State Park. Finally we look at odd boulders transported by glaciers during the Ice Age, around Ithaca and a three other parks around the United States.

Walk in the Park is cablecast on Ithaca TV channels 13 and 97.3 on Thursday at 9 PM, Saturday and Sunday a 10 AM, and finally on Tuesday at 8 PM.

Or you can watch it right here anytime below

Produced by Owl Gorge Productions at PEGASYS studios in Ithaca, NY, the public access TV station operated by Time Warner Cable in Ithaca.
Have you seen our award-winning book about Watkins Glen State Park?

Spring Thaw at the Falls

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Our Finger Lakes Park Minute #39. The City of Ithaca, NY is framed by two big waterfalls. Both put on a show when the water is high. Ithaca Falls is at the City’s northeast corner. Buttermilk Falls is at Ithaca’s southwest boundary.

Produced by Owl Gorge Productions.
See our national award winning book, A WALK THROUGH WATKINS GLEN, WATER’S SCULPTURE IN STONE.

See all of our Park Minutes.

Stewart Park Revitalization, Part 2

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This week’s Walk in the Park episode 91 continues the presentation, by the Friends of Stewart Park on November 18 at Cinemapolis in Ithaca, about the revitalization of Stewart Park in Ithaca on the south shore of Cayuga Lake. Cablecasts are scheduled for Thanksgiving evening at 9:00, Saturday and Sunday at 10:30 a.m., and finally on Tuesday, Dec. 2 at 8:00 p.m., all on Ithaca public access cable channels 13 and 97.3. And you can watch it online anytime, anywhere, below on this page.

Tea Pavilion, Stewart Park, Ithaca, NY

In 2013, Ithaca Festival goers enjoy music at the renovated Tea Pavilion, more commonly known as the Small Pavilion, at Stewart Park along the south shore of Cayuga Lake in Ithaca, NY>

Last week, in part 1, Rick Manning, executive director of Friends of Stewart Park, explained the history of Stewart Park, while Diana Riesman, executive director of the Wharton Studio Musuem project, told of us the silent movie production studio at Renwyck Park (soon to become Stewart Park) at the park a century ago.

This week, Rick brings Stewart Park up to the present, tells us of the many things that have been done to improve the park in recent years, and explains exciting plans for the immediate and longer term future. Diana reveals the plans for the Wharton Studio Museum and what has been accomplished to date.

You can watch it online here anytime!

 

Stewart Park Revitalization, Part 1

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Episode 90 of Walk in the Park is showing now on Ithaca’s public access cable channels 13 and 97.3, and online here (see below). Remaining cablecasts are today at 10:30 a.m. and on Tuesday, November 24, at 8:00 p.m.

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The Friends of Stewart Park in Ithaca, NY gave a presentation on November 18, 2014 at the Cinemapolis theatre in downtown Ithaca about exciting changes happening at this popular park at the south end of Cayuga Lake in New York’s beautiful Finger Lakes region. In episode 90 of Walk in the Park, we look at the history of the park when it was called Renwyck Park a century ago, including the Wharton Studios, a well-known center of the silent film industry at the time, located at Stewart Park in Ithaca.

You can watch this episode online right here anytime!

Part 2 is scheduled to come out next week which will continue the history of the park up until the present, and will reveal wonderful park improvements plans underway now and in the future. This event was sponsored as well by a number of other partners, including the City of Ithaca, the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, the Wharton Studio Museum group, and the revived Cascadilla Boat Club. Produced at PEGASYS public access studios in Ithaca, NY 11/20/14. Produced by Owl Gorge Productions.

Park Minute: Buttermilk Creek Becomes Lake Treman

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In the upper section of Buttermilk Falls State Park, in Ithaca, NY, far from the gorge and waterfalls, Buttermilk Creek enters shallow Lake Treman. Created by a dam built at least 70 years ago, the lake is mostly silted in and is becoming a marsh with cattail grasses. It’s a good place to watch for wildlife. Park Minute episode 23. See more Park Minutes.

Love Your Parks!

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Episode 77 of Walk in the Park, recorded May 21, 2014. On Ithaca public access TV cable channels 13 and 97.3, continuing Saturday and Sunday, May 24 and 25, at 10:30 a.m., and Tuesday, May 27, at 8:00 p.m. And, of course, online right here anytime.

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Volunteers assemble picnic tables in the parking lot of the upper park in Robert H. Treman State Park on I Love My Park Day on May 3. Photo by Monica Howland of the Friends of Robert H. Treman State Park.

This time we look at I Love My Park Day on May 3 at Robert H. Treman State Park near Ithaca; initiated and coordinated by Parks & Trails New York and organized and run by park staff and the Friends of Robert H. Treman State Park. Fifty-five volunteers built picnic tables, filled sand bags and carried them and stones into the upper gorge for post-flood stone masonry repairs on the Gorge Trail, cleared the South Rim Trail of leaves and tree limbs that had covered it over the winter, cleared gravel and other debris from the footbridge below Lucifer Falls, and cleaned the Old Mill.

Buttermilk Falls in flood May 16, by Lucienne Cruvellier

Buttermilk Falls in flood May 16, by Lucienne Cruvellier

In the second half of the show, we take a look at flooding at Buttermilk Falls, Ithaca Falls, Taughannock Falls, and Cayuga Lake through the lenses of local residents, and watch an aerial video of downtown Ithaca by Photography 4d.

See the show right here!

And, you can watch our Park Minute summary of I Love My Park Day right here as well:

Walk in the Park is produced by Owl Gorge Productions, publisher of ITHACA-the CITY, GORGES, and COLLEGES, A WALK THROUGH WATKINS GLEN: WATER’S SCULPTURE IN STONE, and TUX the CAT and his EXOTIC EXPLOITS.

Trees, Falls, and Trails

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Episode 71 of Walk in the Park, our Ithaca, NY public access cable TV series 2017 Ithaca public access channel 13 cablecast schedule:

Saturday, March 25, 2017, 10:00 AM and 10:30 PM

Sunday, 10:00 AM and 7:00 PM

Monday, 4:00 PM

Tuesday, 11:30 and 8:00 PM

Wednesday, March 29, 2017, 9:00 AM and 7:00 PM

Or you can watch it here ONLINE! (see below)

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MrHeli4444’s view over the lip of Taughannock Falls from his remote controlled aerial device, featured in this episode of Walk in the Park.

This time, we learn about the coming assault on ash trees in our forests by the invasive beetle, the emerald ash borer, and what we can do to insure the long-term survival of ash tree species. You can watch this short segment separately at “Responding to the Emerald Ash Borer Invasion.”

Then we look at Taughannock Falls State Park in different times in history through photographs. This is followed by a spectacular aerial video around the top of the great falls itself. Thanks to Steve Knapp of Keuka View Photography and Bill Hecht for some of the photos in this segment, and to MrHeli4444 for the video.

Finally, we look at the dangers involved in hiking on closed trails in our state parks this spring before residual winter ice conditions and rockfall hazards have been dealt with and the trails declared open.

Watch the show now here!

Walk in the Park is a public access TV series in Ithaca, NY. Check for times and channels.