Adventures in dog

With the Bills playing late, the easiest way to make the game come faster is to go for an adventure.

Gord poodle and I left Beth home and headed down the Whirlpool stairs.

If it was a longer hike I would better prepare. As it is, I always carry water, snacks, dog treats and a fully charged phone.

The easiest starting point is Whirlpool State Park, 3100 Niagara Scenic Pkwy. Niagara Falls, NY 14305.

Park in the main lot. Move north through the playground or along the railing (both end at the same place.)

When you come to a staircase on the left, take it.

On Sunday, the trail was lightly snow-covered and icy. So were the stairs.

I highly recommend hiking poles. Microspikes would be helpful as well. Unless you have 4-paw drive as Gord does.

The stairs were rebuilt by the state about 5 years ago. It was an extended project, with 400-pound steps winched into the gorge and then levered into place, inch by inch.

In low-traffic times on these trails, I like to let Gord off leash.

Going down, he stayed 10-steps ahead of me at first, then 20, then just out of sight, doubling back to make sure I was with him.

He got to the bottom first and sat down and waited.

We hiked left along the Great Gorge Railway bed south toward the Whirlpool. For those who don’t know, the electric railroad ran in the base of the gorge on both sides from 1895 to 1935. The train paralleled the river on both sides but was eventually shut down because rockslides on the unstable bank made it impossible to keep open.

Even below the Whirlpool, the water swirls spectacularly. It is easier to see at times like this because of the ice floating in the river heads south along the eastern shore.

Above the Whirlpool rest Class 6 rapids, the most powerful class. It is spectacular to see from above. In dry weather, there are two ways to hike down to the “flats” which is the area adjacent to the end of the upper rapids.

The first is more rigorous. If you hike past it, there is an easier way down.

On this day, it was one of the only time I have seen the snow undisturbed on the limestone shelf so I decided not to go down.

We hiked on along the top to where the trail is closed before your reach the Whirlpool Bridge. There is a staircase near the Whirlpool Bridge adjacent to the Suspension Bridge abutment that offers access to the river below the Whirlpool Bridge and above the start of the upper rapids but the trail is shut off as you start to go north much below the bridge. It is impassable.

An interesting side note is that the suspension bridge was the path to freedom and many slaves were led across by Harriet Tubman. The top area adjacent to the abutment will be reshaped into a “Freedom Plaza” over the next year.

Heading back to the Whirlpool trail, we pivoted and turned north. Gord ran ahead. I hoped to find winter oyster mushrooms but saw none. We also couldn’t identify the sassafras trees that exist along the trail.

In early summer, however, there are sweet cherries for you to nosh on. There are also hundreds of old white cedars trees.

Those cedars first came to notoriety under the encouragement of Bruce Kershner, who included them in his book “Somewhere to Go on Sunday” which has since been updated and reissued. It’s interesting to see those cedars growing next to cherry trees that grew from pits spit by train passengers and should not be there naturally.

As we headed back, Gord ran ahead and up the hillside. I let him go, out of sight. Two hikers approached, geared up for the weather, both using hiking poles.

“Great day for it,” I said.

“It is,” came the reply.

“Did you see a brown poodle?”

“No, we didn’t. Uh oh.”

With that, I called, “Gordon”.

He bounded back from behind me. He had doubled-back on the hillside, undetected. All day he was sniffing, looking, researching. We saw lots of fox traps but only one squirrel, and no signs of rabbits, mink, beaver, deer, coyotes, weasels or other mammals, at least not on the lower trail.

As we headed back, Gord ran ahead and started to go up the stairs. I called him back and we headed toward Devil’s Hole.

There is a spectacular monolith along the trail near the lower Whirlpool Rapids. The trail gets very narrow. When we hiked it, there was a sign on a tree that said “Trail closed again” but there was not blockage, just barriers stacked in the weeds with a traffic cone, where the state keeps them for the next time the trail slides.

“Devil’s Hole” is a curious name – it preceded the white man and came about because of a cave said to be haunted.

In the late 1700s, our region was the western frontier of our new nation. Our region was nominally ruled by the British.

A sort of peace had been reached between the white man and the Haudenosaunee whereby both sides received safe passage in a half-mile strip on both sides of the river. The indigenous folks received title to the islands in the river and a noncompete agreement for their portage business.

In 1785, the Brits were fixing up the portage route and begi nning to steal the business. The Senecas, one of the Haudenosaunee nations, staged an ambush at Devils Hole. 85 British soldiers died in what the white man calls the “Devil’s Hole Massacre.”

Ask the indigenous and they call it a well-planned battle action. “You broke the treaty. You should have known you had it coming.”

Regarding the islands in the river, the white man just took title of everything from Bird Island to Goat, Grand and what we now call Unity island. That continued until the 1980s when the Senecas sued and said “hey, we want our islands back.”

The lawsuit continued until New York State said “hey, how about we steal the convention center from Niagara Falls and you build a casino.” Somehow that was enough. For the record, the Express not only doesn’t like the casino but thinks the Senecas settled way too easily.

Anyway, back on the trail, we saw some fishermen down below. Along the bank there is beaver sign, not recent, but obvious. Gord sniffed in the wind. He senses things we cannot.

Arriving at the Devil’s Hole stairs Gord charged toward the top. About halfway up I called him back and put him on leash because there might be people around at the top.

Right before the final flight of stairs, if you climb over the stonewall and go left, you can visit the haunted cave. To the right is a ravine through which flows Bloody Run. It’s said to be where the British soldiers’ bodies were dumped but they have never been located.

The graveyard may be up above, somewhere near Niagara University and the large, capped Love Canal era landfill.

At the top, we paused to admire the plaque honoring Ralph Wilson, somehow appropriate on game day.

Then we hiked south along the rim trail toward Whirlpool State Park and home.