Little Rock City

(This column appeared in the November 18, 1996 Buffalo News.)

   On the Saturday of Veteran's Day weekend I joined Kelly Pickering, Don 
Prestwood, and Terry Swank of Elmira on a hike south of Ellicottville along 
the Conservation Trail. Although it had snowed an inch the night before our 
walk and some fell as we made our way through the forest, we were ahead of the 
heavy snowfall that buried those same hills just hours later.

   To my pleasant surprise it was a good day for hiking. Sub-freezing 
temperatures had been predicted but the thermometer registered nearer 40°. It 
did rain part of the time we were out, but that produced less water than the 
snow-melt dropping from trees. What real snow fell was more like tiny ice 
pellets that disappeared as soon as they hit the ground. And several times the 
clouds broke allowing the sun to lighten the otherwise gloomy woodlands.

   An unexpected amount of green remained along the trail. There were, of 
course, the Christmas ferns, evergreen woodferns, and partridgeberry that 
would stay green through the winter, but many of the thorny raspberry bushes 
retained a few green leaves as well.

   Most deciduous trees were bare, many of their leaves now slippery 
underfoot. The bright primary colors they sported just weeks ago had drained 
away leaving only variegated browns with stems and veins deepening into black. 
Their shapes were still identifiable, however. Most were from red and white 
oaks, the many lobes of their leaves differentiating them by spiked or rounded 
ends, but there were also leaves from sugar and striped maples, aspen, and 
beech.

   Only the tamaracks were still colorful. Also known as larches, these are 
our only conifers that completely shed their needles each winter. Now their 
tiny needles made each tree sparkle like burnished gold against the green of 
neighboring pines.

   Water was high throughout the Southern Tier and my companions had been 
forced to detour around flooded roads near Corning, but fortunately we had 
only one major creek to cross. Most of us scrambled across rocks, but Kelly 
adopted a more interesting means of passage. She pulled a garbage bag over 
each leg and waded through the racing water. One bag leaked but the damage was 
minor.

   About half way along this nine mile trail section we suddenly came upon the 
huge stones of Little Rock City. Our path followed a sidewalk-wide opening 
between two giant cubes 30 feet on each edge. As I walked through it, I 
wondered about the lottery-like chance of an earthquake. As that television ad 
says, "Hey, you never know."

   I formerly thought that such rocks as these and similar ones at Olean's 
Rock City and Panama Rocks near Jamestown were carried south and dropped here 
by glaciers, but University at Buffalo geologist Parker Calkin has set me 
straight. These rocks were part of the almost 400 million year old Cattaraugus 
sandstone, sediment laid down at the bottom of an ancient ocean. This thick 
layer of highly compressed stone contained tiny stress fissures created by the 
enormous weight of less solid mountains being deposited on it and then worn 
away.

   Then when glaciers filled the lower valleys about 20,000 years ago, what 
geologists call periglacial (for near glacier) forces acted on this slab which 
now protruded like a diving board from its hillside. Ice formed in those 
stress cracks, its expanding and contracting forces enlarging them. Meanwhile 
ice and water further undermined its foundation until finally these house size 
chunks broke off to form this seemingly urban collection of buildings and open 
basements and alleys.

   Whatever the cause, the result is spectacular, a delightful bonus on a fall 
hike.