I don't have any direct memories of "gorging out" (just reading about it in the papers) but I do have many memories of me trying to climb the walls, not in a serious way using ropes and hardware, but just seeing a spot where it looked like I could climb and giving it a go.  It usually ended with me finding the shale was breaking up so bad that I had to back down (never much fun).  Strange for someone who is pretty scared of heights.  I also have similar memories of trying to climb the willow trees along the shore at Taughannock State Park only to have to back down.  You'd think I'd learn...

I think I went down in the gorge once to the spot where someone had landed a few days after the fact but I don't remember any sign of the incident other than some left over cloth (probably part of the clean up).  

My parents' house about 1/4 the way up the East Buffalo Street hill gave me easy access to Cascadilla Gorge, one of the lesser gorges in the area, via a somewhat gradual slope off the end of Willets Place (I used another one off the end of Fountain Place as a shortcut to get to high school).  We moved there after I left the sixth grade (the point where I went from elementary school to junior high school) so I was at an age when exploring and adventures in the gorge were a major part of my "free time" in the summer (do kids have that anymore?).  Though not as deep or wide as Fall Creek, Six Mile Creek, or the State Park gorges Cascadilla had a wonderful, if crumbling, path going up through it complete with arched stone bridges.  The water channel of the gorge varies from maybe ten feet wide at the narrowest cataracts to wide flat areas of flat rock that are maybe twenty or thirty feet wide and go on for fifty or more feet at a time before being broken by a fall of maybe a foot or two.  (I'm picturing this from memories more than 30 years old.)

The main attraction of the gorge was its central location, right between Ithaca and Cornell, so in good weather it could be an alternate route to downtown though I imagine few used it for that.  In addition to the main path down the bottom of the gorge there also were paths that came down the sides from, for instance, the twisty street on the north side, Cascadilla Park Road, but these were in considerably worse shape.  Cascadilla Park Road is Ithaca's version of Lombard Street in San Franciso only much narrower and less travelled (signs on the street discourage through traffic).  One hot summer day back around 1969 or 1970 when a friend and I were hanging around in and above the gorge we noticed a young couple (maybe high school senior age--we were two or three years younger) coupling on one of the very narrow dirt paths that went to Cascadilla Park Road, enjoying what I think they thought was a very private moment (or perhaps not caring--I think there were some drugs around at the time that could have that effect).  

With that friend in town this week (now with a wife, also a Cornellian) and young teenage boys I think we'll have to see if the gorge trail is still passable...

-----Original Message-----
From: Easy bent lead pipe.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Gabriel
Orgrease
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 9:16 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [BP] Gorging Out


Jim Follett wrote:

>Tell them about "gorging out".
>
Ouch!

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