Beautiful but monstrous

That was the phrase that popped into my head while I was walking through Squirrel Hill on a nearly silent Saturday night.  The evergreen trees were piled high with snow, making them look even taller than usual, and because I was walking in the middle of the street due to impassable sidewalks, my perspective had changed.  It felt like a scene from a movie and not a walk through my familiar neighborhood.

Because my car is still marooned (and my snow driving skills are minimal anyway), I’ve had to make the most of my geography and limit myself to taking photos in Schenley and Frick Parks.  Yesterday in particular was absolutely gorgeous and worth trudging through snow-packed trails to experience the snowy trees against that brilliant blue sky.  It was disheartening to see that some trails were blocked or impeded by some trees that didn’t survive the snowstorm, but given the amount of snow, it seemed like it could have been a lot worse.  Phil says that most of the damage seems to be broken limbs–he’s going around assessing the situation this week, and we’ll post an update soon!

For now, here are some pics from the Snowpocalypse in the parks.  First up, Schenley Park, where I headed almost as soon as the snow stopped on Saturday afternoon.  I partially waded up Beacon Street through several house-lengths of unshoveled snow until someone finally shouted at me from their porch, “Walk in the street!  It’s much easier!”  He was not wrong… The “Welcome to Schenley Park” sign was almost totally buried, as was this bench.

The view up Beacon Street was gorgeous.

Intrepid cross-country skiers, two of the handful of people I spotted in the park.

The snow started blowing off the trees, creating a really beautiful soft cascade downward.  In this shot you can see in front of the playground equipment that the birch tree has bowed over under the weight of the snow.  It didn’t look to me like it had snapped, so perhaps it’ll find its way back upward again.

Yesterday I walked over to Frick Park, noting that the now much colder temperatures were barely noticeable since climbing through all the snow and icy sidewalks was such a workout.  Here’s a shot of the sled tracks near the Blue Slide Playground, and then one from the Falls Ravine Trail.  The contrast of so many tall trees and the one that didn’t make it was interesting to me.  The rest of this tree was also blocking the trail, so I had to turn back.

This one is just one of those shots where you realize how indispensable the woods are.

This was my “wow” moment, coming up the Riverview Trail Extension toward the Environmental Center.  The sky was an amazing blue, and then right in the direction of the sun, the snow started to slide off the trees in thousands of tiny sparkles.

There were lots of mourning doves (and a couple of quick-moving cardinals) hanging out around the Environmental Center.

Good to see the snow isn’t piled too high to get inside the gatehouses!

For more park snow photos, check out John Moyer’s Nine Mile Run pics from Saturday on Flickr.  Really beautiful!

Rebuilding the walls

Quick trails project update for you, thanks to some images we just got in from the folks at Allison Park Contractors:

Laying the foundation...

Two years ago the historic wall behind the Schenley Park Cafe and Visitor Center collapsed landslide-style during a rainstorm.  Since the trail runs above a pretty steep slope, this didn’t result in the safest of conditions.  So a top priority for the trail repair project was getting the wall back up so that the trail could be returned to normal use.

Over the last few weeks, crews have laid the structural foundation for the wall and are now beginning to fill in the area around it.  Thanks to a new 8-inch concrete slab that will be buried underneath the cobblestone trail surface, the wall should be more secure than ever before. 

Filling in the trail

Considering this wall was built over 100 years ago and the Department of Public Works operated out of this location for many years, this trail withstood a lot,” says Phil Gruszka, our Director of Park Management and Maintenance.  “With this new foundation, the next repair shouldn’t be until about 2157.  OK, maybe not 2157, but well into the next century.”

In other trail project news, the WPA bridges along the Hollow Run trail will be sounded by masons in the next few weeks in order to detect loose pieces that may need to be knocked off and reattached before full restoration work can be completed.  Similar work is going on with the tufa bridges.  New tufa will be ordered to replace some lost pieces, and then the bridges will be cleaned so that the new tufa and the old tufa match as well as possible.  It’ll probably be a few years before they look completely right, but the new tufa will weather and start to look more like the original as time passes.

For more on the trail improvement project, check out this recent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Soon you can bring the parks home…

Behind the scenes here at the Parks Conservancy, we’re working on something we think is pretty exciting: an online store! Previously, the only real park-related thing we’ve seen for sale in Pittsburgh is an illustration of Schenley Plaza on a Starbucks mug, and we thought, “If people are going to buy something park-related, the money should really GO to the parks.” Since then we’ve been brainstorming what kinds of cool things we can create and pass on to you.

So now we need your input! What kinds of things do YOU want to buy? We’ll start out with some of the basics, like t-shirts and hats with the Parks Conservancy logo. But we’re really interested in things that are park-specific, like notecards and stamps with photos of the parks (and, closer to the beginning of 2011, calendars for each of the parks!). That’s where you come in. What is it about each park that’s so special to you? If you were going to dream up the perfect t-shirt to show your love for Schenley Park, what would it have on it?

We’ve put together a quick poll below so you can give us an idea of what you’re most interested in. But we’d also love to hear your thoughts on specific items you’d like to see, so please leave us a comment at the end of this post! (Or if you’re shy, you can use the contact form on our website, and it’ll come to us via e-mail.)  We’re hoping to have the store up and running within the next month or so, so we need your feedback now!

All hail the Urban EcoStewards

This past Saturday, we held our annual Urban EcoSteward winter gathering, when we invite all current or interested EcoStewards to one of the parks to talk about the past year’s accomplishments, announce plans for the new year, and generally just relieve cabin fever by getting out for a while. 

Usually we have a lot of snow on the ground, and we still have tons of EcoStewards show up (I think we all need a good excuse to get outside in January!).   This year, though, it was an absolutely gorgeous, warm day in Schenley Park, and we had a record turnout of more than 60 people. 

The tree of heaven and its many seeds.

We heard from all of our field coordinators about the great things that have been going on in the parks.  Luke Stamper from the Nine Mile Run Watershed Association shared how one of the Frick Park EcoStewards had noticed some small invasive trees of heaven in the park and traced the source to several large ones on the hillside near the soccer field.  She reported back to Luke, who contacted the Frick Park foreman.  The Frick crew then located several dozen of these harmful trees and was able to either remove them or girdle them to stunt their growth.  Because a tree of heaven can produce 325,000 seeds per year that can easily be scattered by the wind, that’s a huge impact on Frick Park’s ecology that was averted by the vigilance of one park volunteer.

The Urban EcoSteward program started back in 2004 with 33 volunteers each taking responsibility for a small piece of parkland and then learning to maintain it.  Today, we have over 130 EcoStewards, and we’ve moved beyond Frick, Highland, Riverview, and Schenley to the Grand View Scenic Byway Park in Mount Washington.  Together, these dedicated volunteers are helping to remove invasive plants, plant new trees and shrubs, stabilize hillsides, remove litter, and talk with other park users about why their work is important.

This year is a particularly exciting one for the program, because for the first time we’re taking the program into our local high schools.  Starting this year at City High, we’ll bring a group of students into Schenley Park several times for hands-on restoration projects.  The program will help the students understand the impact of human behavior on parks, and how our actions can either help or hurt our environment.  We’ll be moving to different schools in the community as the program goes on.

And finally, we’re also offering a Crew Leader Training session on February 21.  If you plan on volunteering with us anytime throughout the year and think you’d like to lead a crew, we’ll teach you all you need to know.  For more info about this and our other trainings, click here. Remember, you can attend even if you’re not an EcoSteward–we welcome everyone to check out the program at any time!

Dozens of EcoStewards on a warm winter walk through Schenley Park.

A Valentine’s gift that lasts

I know, it seems a bit early to start thinking about Valentine’s Day, but now that the Christmas decorations are down and all the red-and-green M&Ms are off the shelves, the pressure is on to come up with the perfect gift for your special someone.

Well, this year, we propose a unique new idea that will let you show some love to the parks and to your Valentine!  Sure, you could spend $50 on cut flowers that will fade quickly (and that are often grown under conditions highly toxic to the environment and the people who grow them).  But instead, you could put that $50 toward flowers or a tree in Pittsburgh’s parks that will continue to grow year after year.

For your $50 donation, you can choose between 25 daffodil bulbs to be planted in the parks this year as part of our Daffodil Project, or one small native sapling that will help us to restore our forest canopy. 

And when you make your gift before February 8th, we’ll even mail you a special card that you can give to your sweetheart, letting them know you’ve made a contribution to the parks on their behalf. 

So what are you waiting for?  Click here to make your gift today!

Trail closure maps

With the trail restoration project in full swing in Schenley Park, we thought we’d give you an idea of exactly where the work is taking place so that you can plan your visit accordingly.

In Schenley Park, the Upper and Lower Panther Hollow Trails and the Hollow Run Trail are currently closed, with work set to begin on the Steve Faloon Trail soon.  So far, crews have resurfaced the lower Hollow Run Trail and a portion of the Lower Panther Hollow Trail.  They’re now installing new drainage systems and replacing inlets and culverts.  Phil and Bryan from our staff have been helping with cleaning and grubbing–removing invasive plant material that’s in the way of the trail work.  (The whole crew knows they need to work around the native plants!)

Work will continue for a few more months on these Schenley trails, so now would be a good time to get to know some of the lesser-used trails in that park like the Bridle Trail or the Vietnam Veterans Trail.  Work in Highland Park will start over the next few weeks as well.  There won’t be any trail repair going on in Highland in this phase of the project, but a substantial new trail will be built on the hillside above Butler Street along the northern border of the park.

Below is a map that shows the closed trails in Schenley Park shaded in hot pink.  Click here for maps of the eventual trail closures in all four parks.

Running toward spring

Soon the Spring Hat Luncheon tents will return to Highland Park for the first time since 2005.

Picture a fountain, if you will, surrounded by benches in the spring time.  The flower beds just behind the benches bloom purple and pink, the green leaves bigger than you think leaves should be.  The big, open garden is alive with new growth, and a white tent is slowly going up amidst a hubbub of workers that chuckle with good nature.

You jog through the entrance to this scene, happily, heading down a hill, following a winding road that circles the Highland Park Reservoir.  You step onto the path to your right, realizing you should get out of the way of cars and then promptly, you slip.

You slipped, you did not fall, and that counts for something.  It counts for a lot, but nothing can make up for the fact that it’s still not May and that the scene you imagined at the outset of your run was something of a hallucination.  Indeed, the Spring Hat Luncheon and its cheerful garden preparations are still over three months away. 

The Entry Garden resting for the winter.

The run I took this past weekend in my native Highland Park was not without its rewards, however (and by native I mean I’ve lived there since July), and in fact I consider it a highlight of my holiday weekend.  Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been proud, I’m sure of it, if for no other reason than I did something active in a community setting.  The air was fresh, the sky was a pretty blue, and for 20 minutes I spent time amongst my neighbors, a diverse collection of dog walkers, stroller pushers and other runners.

I’ve been a member of the Parks Conservancy team for three months tomorrow and have yet to visit Riverview Park in the North Side, the original destination for my run on Monday.  I don’t know.  If the trails are clear, maybe next weekend.

Winter wonderland

Winter is not my favorite season (I’m from Tennessee, a temperate land where they close the schools based on a forecast of half an inch of snow).  So I still struggle with the prolonged cold after six years in Pittsburgh.  I drove my slush-covered car past some joggers the other day and thought, “OK, there is nothing I’m so committed to that I’d stay outside in the cold for any length of time!”

And then I spent pretty much the whole weekend outside taking photographs.  So…I am obviously not committed enough to fitness, but it turns out there is something about winter that I really like.

So here’s a little tour through the parks during what I’m calling Arctic Rock 2010 (thanks to this New York Times article that describes the recent cold snap as “a mass of high pressure…sitting over Greenland like a rock in a river”).

Wednesday

I took a walk in Schenley Park after work, and everything was so quiet and peaceful.  There’s something nice about looking down at Panther Hollow Lake when it’s covered in snow–you forget for a minute what a mess it looks like the rest of the year!

My fingers were borderline frozen, but I decided to grab a few shots of the Schenley Park Cafe while there was still a little light, and the sky turned this beautiful pink while I was shooting.  Hooray for that historic railing for serving as my tripod.  (I go through tripods like a kid goes through candy; I finally caved and ordered a nice one, but it arrived with just the body and no head.  Go figure.  But eventually I hope to lead a blur-free existence.)

Thursday

I didn’t make it to the park, but Phil and Laura were game for making snow angels outside of our office.  Debbie spotted me standing on a picnic table as she came in to work, so she decided to join in!  Have I mentioned we have a delightful group of folks at the Parks Conservancy?

Friday

I paid an afternoon visit to Frick Park, but didn’t get a whole lot of great shots.  General rule of thumb: snow makes attractive photos, but not so much when it’s actively snowing.  I probably looked kinda funny with my camera clutched to my chest wrapped in a plastic bag.  Here’s a photo of the Reynolds Street gatehouse with a vintage look applied in post-processing.

Here’s another one from Frick, taken around the council ring.

Newly intrigued by the half-hour after sunset since the Wednesday shots turned out so nicely, I headed over to Schenley Plaza to get some photos of the holiday lighting with some actual snow on the ground.  The streetlights gave the snow a pinkish cast, which I like.  It’s a good thing I’m not a white-snow purist or I’d probably disappoint myself on a regular basis!

But I think the real subject on Friday night wound up being the Mary Schenley Memorial Fountain.  The combination of the lighting and the blowing snow made it look so dramatic, whether from across the street or standing right beneath it.   This was also the rare occasion that the very last picture I took was my favorite one, especially surprising considering I had no feeling in my fingers by that point and was shivering all over the place.

Saturday

I made it over to Highland Park just before sunset to find the park mostly deserted (which was a surprise, because how could you resist sledding down Mount Bigelow?).  I thought this one magnificent tree surrounded by a lot of newcomers was pretty cool-looking.

I stopped by the Entry Garden on my way out.  This is one of my favorite vantages to take photos, but I’ve never been able to perfect the balance between the sky and the ground, usually resulting in the sacrifice of a brilliant sky.  This was no exception, especially with the added challenge of that pesky sensor-tricking snow.  Anyone who wants to give me an impromptu lesson on metering, I would be much indebted to you!

Sunday

I only had about 10 minutes to stop by Riverview Park on my way to pick up my Little Sister, so I just made a quick stop at the Mairdale entrance.  Not much going on (I was sort of hoping to see a deer…or a cardinal, because I’ve never gotten the iconic cardinal-in-the-snow shot).  Maybe when I get my tripod… 

On the way to get Xiana, I noticed that the rivers were partially frozen, which is the one thing about Pittsburgh winter I always get a little giddy about.  I’m not sure why I find that so cool, but for some reason it always makes the cold a little easier to stand.  I asked her if she’d ever seen a frozen river, and she said no, so I took her down to the sculpture park at Allegheny Landing to check it out.

As we walked along, we saw a huge flock of ducks and geese sitting on an icy patch, so we walked up for a closer look.  As soon as we stopped walking they all started flying at us, which was not the response I expected!  I imagine they’re pretty hungry.  I’m just glad they didn’t take out their rage at our lack of crackers by pursuing us all the way to the car.

Finally, after I took Xiana back home I decided it was time to finally venture up to the West End Overlook and try to get a nice skyline shot with the icy rivers.  Unfortunately, I got there about an hour before dark so the photos weren’t exactly dramatic.  But I decided to stick it out, since I’ve been meaning to get up there for a long time and I obviously haven’t made the effort.  So I found an awning and stood under it until about 5:30, at which point I blurred 99% of the photos.  Go figure.  But hey…all it takes is one, and I like this one a lot.  Next time, though, I’m going to venture up there when the temperature is higher than 18!

Got some fun winter photos of your own to share?  Post them to our Flickr group!

A natural resolution

Now that 2010 is here, it’s time to make a New Year’s resolution you might actually keep! Stay away from the overcrowded gyms and resolve to spend more time in the parks–particularly in learning about how their ecosystems work. From the smallest ant to the tallest sycamore tree, there is so much to see in the parks and so much to learn about how it all works together.

At the 2009 Tree ID training, Phil showed us some amazing umbrella magnolias growing in Riverview Park.

We’ll help you jump-start your year of park education with this just-announced calendar of Urban EcoSteward trainings for 2010.  You can learn everything from how to be a great volunteer to crew leader to the best way to stop invasive plants from spreading their seeds, and along the way there will even be s’mores!  It’s hard to ask for much more than that.

All of these trainings are absolutely free and open to anyone who’s interested, whether you’re an active Urban EcoSteward or not.  All you have to do is RSVP, which you can do anytime by using the form beneath the list of trainings.

And here’s a little bonus for you: every year at the Native Seed Collection training, Kathy McGregor of Sylvania Natives hands out a list of some of her favorite books on the subject.  If you’re interested in learning more about why native plants are so important to preserving the biodiversity and ecological harmony of our parks (or any landscapes), this is a great place to start.

Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, Douglas Tallamy

Wildflowers: A Guide to Growing and Propagating Native Flowers of North America, William Cullina

Native Trees, Shrubs and Vines: A Guide to Using, Growing, and Propagating North American Woody Plants, William Cullina

Growing and Propagating Wild Flowers, Harry Phillips

Noah’s Garden: Restoring the Ecology of Our Own Backyards, Sara Stein

Planting Noah’s Garden: Further Adventures in Backyard Ecology, Sarah Stein

American Plants for American Gardens, Edith Roberts & Elsa Rehmann

Gardening with Native Wild Flowers, Samuel B. Jones Jr. & Leonard E. Foote

The Natural Habitat Garden, Ken Druse

Year-end link roundup

Because I always love NTEN’s monthly link roundup, I thought I’d put up a quick list of some links I’ve found interesting, useful, or entertaining this past year.  Enjoy!

• Walking in the park and see a lovely purple flower that makes you go “What is THAT?”  Snap a photo of it, come home, and sleuth out its identity at MyWildflowers.com.  I use this ALL THE TIME in the summer.
• Ditto this website that tells you everything you wanted to know about invasive species.
• Everything starts at home, right?  Charity, conservation, all that good stuff?  Add ecology to that list and check out localecology.org.
• While we can’t guarantee that the first Hockey Night in Pittsburgh took place in 1895, you can actually see an image from such a night in this great history of the short-lived Schenley Casino. 
• This just makes everyone working on the Mellon Square project laugh.
• Awesome magazine #1: when you subscribe to Good, your money goes to charity!  Plus, it’s full of things you should really know.
• Awesome magazine #2: Our Director of Education, Marijke, introduced me to a beautiful magazine, Orion, earlier in the year.  Here’s a sample of one of their thoughtful pieces.  Even better–you can subscribe digitally and never sacrifice a tree while you’re reading about them.
• This First Daffodils blog brings some brilliant spring cheer every year (and they included one of my Schenley Park shots this year, so bonus!).
• 21 amazing photos of trees.
• Several of us visited Central Park the week before their devastating microburst.  Here was their emergency appeal (with a link to some amazing lightning images).
• The Historic Pittsburgh Image Collection is an amazing resource.  Type “Highland Park” into the search box and you practically get a tour of the zoo in the 50s. 
• Speaking of archives, did you know you can check out all our past newsletters in nifty page-flipping Flash format?
• And finally, here’s the #1 most popular link in our office right now, which has nothing to do with anything but Christmas: Elf Yourself.  We guarantee hysterical laughter.

If you have any fun links you think park users would be interested in, leave a comment below and maybe we’ll do more of these periodically.