Watkins Glen

I've climbed Watkins Glen three times. Today, I'd need to take their shuttle van to the top. Many people in good health opt to do that, but they miss a lot of its magnificence.

Before the climb, we always walked along their timeline which displays the history of the glen. The model is painted on a guardrail which runs the length of the long narrow parking lot. It begins 400 million years ago, when the area was covered by sea and progresses through the changes that created the glen. The age of the dinosaurs runs for many feet. Just a foot before the end, human beings appear on the timeline. It is humbling to see how insignificant our species is in the history of the earth.