Slipstream #14890

The Story

The Juniata River flowing in blue through a white world of winter snow. Out through the woods, the limbs and branches have a coating of white from the night’s snowfall to make a wonderful winter landscape. Anytime there is sun after snow, those beautiful snow-covered branches are some of Mother Nature’s finest scenery. The sliver of island is a watery home to ash and sycamore trees who know all about resilience and never giving up.

There’s a bridge pier in the center of the river just ahead of the narrow sliver of a tiny island. It slowed the water enough midstream to allow dirt to build up and trees to take hold giving even more resistance to the flow. The dead ash tree at the head of the island is about to go which will cause the island to change and probably grow downstream, but the sycamores there will probably still remain to keep their watery island home.

I shot this image from a bridge on the Lower Trail near the Mt Etna trail stop. It’s an old Pennsylvania Railroad bridge, and before that, there was an aqueduct here in the early 1800s for the Pennsylvania Mainline Canal. Both of them followed this river route upstream to cross the Allegheny Mountains which lie only 12 miles further west from here. This is the Frankstown Branch of the Juniata River heading toward joining with its companion half at Huntingdon PA, the Raystown Branch.

The companion image to this one is Sycamore Street #14890. It’s the opposite view of the Juniata River taken the same day in sequence.

Location: Mt Etna near Williamsburg, Blair County, Pennsylvania, on the Lower Trail. Picture and story © Andrew Dierks