|
|
We stood in yet another line and took yet another elevator to reach the bottom of
the river gorge. The Rainbow Bridge is in the background. It's very hot, so I
won't put on my attraction-issued rain poncho until needed.
|
|
|
The name of this attraction is misleading. Cave of the Winds is not a cave, but rather a walkway that leads visitors over to the base of Bridal Veil Falls, which is the smallest of the three Niagara Falls. The attraction used to be a cave. Named after Aeolus, Greek God of Wind, it stood behind Bridal Veil Falls and was a popular tourist spot as early as the 1800s. The earliest tourists had to climb down a rope, and eventually a staircase, to reach the cave. However, there were occasionally cave-ins, which killed or injured tourists. It was intentionally destroyed in 1955 because it was in danger of collapse.
|
Across the river in Canada is The Ontario Power Generation Company's mothballed
hydro-electric generating plant. It was opened in 1905 and idled in December 1999.
Water entered this generating station from an inlet located one mile upstream of the Falls near Dufferin Islands and was brought to the plant through buried conduit pipes and steel penstocks tunneled through the rock.
Fifteen generators produced 203,000 horsepower (132,500 kilowatts) of 25 cycle electric power.
In December 1999, the (formerly Ontario Hydro) decommissioned the Ontario Power Station from service. This was done to accommodate the building of the permanent Casino Niagara
on the former transformer building site overlooking Queen Victoria Park. This
stone structure makes me think of Morlocks from the book The Time Machine ...
|
Enlarge this for some background.
|
|
|
Visitors are given a poncho and special footwear prior to commencing the hour-long visit. We
are going to walk on a wooden walkway up to what has been dubbed "The Hurricane Deck", the closest accessible point to the falls. It is at this point where visitors get positively soaked, sometimes even more so than from riding on The Maid of the Mist boats. Ice makes the attraction inaccessible in the winter. Damage from ice in the winter requires the decks to be completely re-built each year.
|
|
The picture on the left shows up more mist near Bridal Veil Falls, the picture on the
right seems to have captured a shaft of sunlight highlighting the falls. It's
a very hot day, the wet spray coming up is going to feel good.
|
The view is spectacular! This and the Maid of the Mist are, in my opinion, the two "must do"
activities. For perspective, note the people at the top of the falls in the picture
on the left. As you get closer to the river the small platform rock within Bridal Veil Falls
comes into view. A broken stream of water runs down from it which contrasts with the
rest of the torrent. Enlarge these pictures.
|
Here are folks near talus (broken rock) and rushing water at the base of the Bridal Veil Falls.
The photographer was able to catch rushing water leaping off the rocks - enlarge the
picture to better see it.
|
I am about to take the turn and go up to the Hurricane Deck. It's too wet for pictures
and I no longer had the clear plastic mitten I used for "wet" pictures on the Maid of the Mist.
That's green moss growing on the rocks.
On the Hurricane Deck it's very windy and the water hits you quite forcefully, but
not in a dangerous way. Just like after the Maid of the Mist boat ride, visitors leaving
the Hurricane Deck display wide grins :)
|