New birth

It is mid-November.  In Fall Run Park there are dozens of miniscule waterfalls, most smaller than 2 or 3 feet tall.  In addition to the petite cascades, there are two waterfalls that are the "headliners": one that is roughly 20 feet with a gentle slope; another that dramatically drops almost 50 feet into the valley below it.

This has been a wet autumn with more rainfall than I remember for this time of year since I moved to Pittsburgh in 1998.  The 3 rivers which run through the city, the Monongahela, the Allegheny, and the Ohio, are ripe and swollen, their banks nearly overrun, fuller than I have ever known them to be.  Pine Creek, which runs through Fall Run Park, is no exception.

The path is sodden and the rich creek mud has soaked my shoes and clings to my ankles, staining my blue jeans.  I'm wishing I had stopped by my house to change into my hiking boots or at least had my poles with me.  In just one week, many of the leaves have fallen.  Mixed with the mud and the recent rain, they create a slippery and treacherous footpath.  Several times, I slide and nearly fall.  Somehow I manage to stay on my feet.  

There's been a landslide.  The first of the pedestrian bridges is missing some of its railing.  Two trees are upturned, their roots yanked from the earth.  Branches litter the ground and I step between them.  Someone has started a pile of wood in an effort to clean up.  

To my surprise and delight, the landslide has caused a third large waterfall to emerge, birthed from the heavy rains and misplaced soil and rock.  Her cascade lacks the voluptuous girth of her two older sisters, but she is nonetheless an impressive infant with the potential to be a third headliner.  She is taller than the middle sister.  The big sister is still a head and shoulders above her.

All three of them are in their best finery, bedecked in gowns of foaming white water.  For the first time in two months I have the strength to climb to the largest waterfall.  In a rush of adrenaline surging through me from the lush surroundings, I climb to the top of the waterfall, to the summit where the creek leaps into the valley.  I say out loud to her, you have a new sister.  She answers back that she already knows.