Ken:

That had to scary going up the falls in winter. 

One summer as a young lad (maybe nine or ten years old) a group of about eight of us (most of the guys in that group were a couple of years older than I) from The Flats crossed the creek below the falls and went up the rock slide on the north side (left side facing the falls).  We got up to the top of the falls and some guys (I don't think I did) crossed over the dam at the top of the falls (about 100 feet long and about eight to ten feet high as I recall) but I think I stayed behind.  The water was just trickling over the dam and it was pretty slimy.  I pictured falling off the dam and going the rest of the way down the falls which was perhaps thirty feet away.  I'm guessing it is a about a hundred foot drop over the falls but not the easy slide of Buttermilk Falls which I recall was only about a ten foot high slide and about thirty feet long.  (I don't remember if using the Buttermilk slide was allowed toward the end of my "youth" which ended in the early 70's--I think at some point the park lifeguards stopped you from doing it.  (As I recall you didn't necessarily have control over when you started your slide while manuevering into position on the slippery rocks and if the last person hadn't cleared out of the pool you could hit them pretty hard.  All depends on how high up the falls you started too.  A great way to wear out the seat of your shorts.)

On the south side of the dam was the entrance to The Flume (the cave you speak of), a tunnel cut in the rocks by industrialist Ezra Cornell (founder of Cornell U), or so the story goes.  There is a classic picture from back in the mid or late 1800's of guys standing on planks over the water in the flume, bearded guys half hidden in the darkness of the tunnel.  Immediately above The Flume there is a small park which offers a much safer view of the dam, the falls (from above and upstream from it), the north part of Ithaca below, and the southern end of Cayuga Lake but you can't really tell The Flume is under you from there unless you know what to look for.

There is a big lead abatement project taking place just below The Flume and the former Ithaca Gun factory.  Apparently material cast off from the making (or testing) of Ithaca Shot Guns accumulated outside the back door.  Somehow it got declared a Superfund site or at least worthy of cleanup.  Now they're sluicing material (I think it is shale with lead mixed in) down the hill in a PVC pipe, loading it on trucks and hauling it away (I'm not sure if the water from the sluicing goes back into the creek--seems like there would be some lead in solution).  As I understand it this is all so people won't get brain damage from the lead if they are hanging out around there (as people are want to do).  I think they're more likely to get brain damage from slipping over the edge of the cliffs but I must admit I don't know the particulars of the situation...

As regards the BSA Order of the Arrow ceremony one summer a friend and I were the pyromaniacs that built the ceremonial fire in the middle of the plunge pool at Frontenac (I was an OA member).  The fireball that came down the wire from the cliff was a roll of TP soaked in kerosene.  The actual ignition of the fire was via a mixture of saltpeter and sugar (if I remember correctly) in a paper cup with a few Ohio Blue Tip matches buried in it.  The match tips had a niochrome (sp?) wire wrapped around them (maybe the assembly was dipped in parafin to waterproof it) and each end went back via lampcord to a car battery.  We stabbed the battery terminals just before the fireball hit the stacked wood (actually it hit just behind the wood pile in the water).  The fire would then light off, aided by generous amount of kerosene.  I think the whole gorge reeked of kerosene (on the trail up to the fire the Scouts had to pass "Indians" standing by smudge pots that were #10 cans with a roll of toilet paper in them, burning in a pool of kerosene or at least soaked in it, where they had to repeat a line of the Scout Oath or some such thing in order to pass) or maybe it just seemed that way to me because soaking the wood pile in kerosene ensured that my buddy and I would stink of it for a day or two afterward.  If the saltpeter & sugar device wasn't enough to set the fire off then someone had to wade out to the fire and light it manually witha torch (which I'm sure was an entertaining spectacle to those watching what with the poor footing on the irregular and slimy rocks on the bottom of the plunge pool (the water was only about two feet deep).

Bruce

-----Original Message-----
From: Easy bent lead pipe.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Gabriel
Orgrease
Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 2:17 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [BP] SLAY MOST FOWL

I climbed the ice falls one day while truant from the nearby HS.
It was an altered experience.
I was curious to see inside the cave beneath Ithaca gun.
>
>
Taughannock Falls is a neat one. Frontenac a few miles up the lake north
is were the BSA OA ceremony would be held with Cayuga indians, sort of,
standing on the cliffs either side of the falls chanting out slogans &
BS stuff. A wire from one cliff side going down to a stacked bonfire
they would light up a roll of toilet paper (I think it was TP) and send
it down the wire like a flaming arrow... or a flaming you know what...
and then the bonfire would light up. Great fun in bonfires! Reminds me I
want to go to Burning Man.

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