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Gretchen visits Dominic Ciffs
Sunday, May 10 2026
location: 940 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
Before we got out of bed this morning, a number of heavy showers passed through and we started worrying that maybe we wouldn't collect enough solar energy to make it back to Hurley. But then late as I was drinking my morning coffee, the sun broke broke through. We ended up collecting another 44 more miles of range to add to the 110 we'd started the day with, which was more than enough to return home via the Thruway, the way Gretchen likes to go.
Early this afternoon, Gretchen and I took the dogs (both of them!) on a walk that I led. First I took Gretchen to the new beaver pond just below the bifurcation at the start of West Bifurcation Creek. The pond level was back up to where it had been when I'd first found it; whatever had caused it to partially drain last Sunday had been repaired. That was a fun new thing to show Gretchen, but then I was excited to show her other things I'd known about for years but which she had not yet seen. So I took us down West Bifurcation Creek to its other amazing sights: the place where it flows through a pile of massive boulders and then the place where it runs along the side of series of spectacular cliffs comprised of massive rounded blocks of in-situ bedrock. We didn't initially see those cliffs because Gretchen didn't want to follow the creek downward, since it would mean having to go uphill later. But after looking over the edge of the cliffs, she needed to see what they looked like from other angles: first from the side, and then from below. Neville kept up with us right up to looking over the edge of the precipice. He seemed to have sense about how far to go. But then Charlotte, who had just been running around at the bottom of the cliff, came enthusiastically charging up to us while we were on the cliff's edge. "No!" I shouted, adding, "No horseplay at the edge of a cliff!" She seemed to respect this order and seemed a little sheepish after that. Not only did we have to worry about the edge of the cliff, but there was also the possibility of stepping into a hidden chasm concealed by moss and leaves, so I told Gretchen to trod carefully and be aware of such dangers.
After making our way to the bottom of the cliffs, we looked into some hollows in the cliff face where there appeared to be accumulations of porcupine droppings. By then, Gretchen had decided that my name for the cliffs, "West Bifurcation Cliffs" was too boring and wanted to call them something else, perhaps "Dominic," a celebrity reference to "west" via the actor Dominic West. That seemed okay with me, though "bifurcation" is an unusual-enough word for a term containing it to be anything but boring (to me at least.
"We're not far from the Six Acre Bog," I declared as we continued down West Bifurcation Creek (or is it now "Dominic Creek"?). We stumbled out out the woods into the bog, whose surface was dry enough to let us walk all the way to the banks of Virginia Creek, which is surprisingly rapid-free (but deep and fast-flowing) as it meanders through the bog. Picking out way along its southern shore eastward, we scared up a number of small birds that behaved as though they were fleeing nests on the ground, though I couldn't find any (they have that part figured out).
We headed back uphill mostly on the west bank of East Bifurcation Creek until we got back to the bifurcation itself, essentially having done clockwise circumnavigation of the 30 acre island described by Virginia and the two Bifurcation Creeks.
Back at the cabin, I wanted to make the most of the sunny weather and having the big chainsaw on hand, so I cut up all the rest of the wood that needed cutting. At some point while was inside, the woodpile I'd carefully stacked collapsed, so when I stacked it up again, I added a buttress of firewood and several support struts to defend against a collapse northward.
[REDACTED]
Back home in Hurley, Gretchen and I watched the episode of Jeopardy! when 31-time champion (and lover of General Tso's chicken) Jamie Ding finally went down to defeat. Depite his love of the candied products of factory farms, we'd come to like Jamie Ding, with his crazy hand-flailing means of thinking and his increasingly-kempt appearance (once his family realized he'd become an institution on television).
Neville about to cross the shallow part of the new beaver pond on West Bifurcation Creek from the south. Click to enlarge.
Where West Bifurcation Creek passes through the pile of massive boulders. Click to enlarge.
Gretchen at the base of Dominic Cliffs. Click to enlarge.
Charlotte in Six Acre Bog. Click to enlarge.
After restacking the firewood, the propane tank is almost invisible. We're looking from the north. Click to enlarge.
From the west, you can see the propane tank clearly. Click to enlarge.
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