The first time a Central Park visitor looks out
over the Wildflower Meadow toward the valley
called the Ravine that spreads out before
them they feel as if they have been
transported to the shoulder of a country
road into an unimagined fantasy.
Descending the grassy slope in what appears
to be an unknown expanse of wilderness they
are amazed to find a fabulously emerging
reality. There is a stream bisecting it calledThe Loch and a dense forest through which
it meanders called the North Woods. Filled
with many species of birds, their calls mingle
with the distant sound of rushing water. Lost
in the wonderment of this new discovery the
visitor wanders north along a main path,
contained on the meadow side with a low log
fence, to discover one source of this music of
nature. It is a rocky cascade that sheds a
stream of water over a rocky fall. Ahead is theHuddlestone Arch, which leads back into the
sobering and soul shattering concrete backyard
of the Lasker Pool, a relatively recent addition,
which effectively destroyed the continuance of
the North Woods.
Prompted to turn back from the harsh experience,
the visitor once again enters the
serenity of nature and stepping carefully over
the stone steps that form a bridge over the
cascade finds themselves staring up at the
northern quarter of the North Woods, a 90-acre
woodland that makes up a good part of the
north western quarter of the Park.
Continuing back south along the only other
path that borders the western bank of the
Loch the visitor comes upon the first of two
rustic bridges, Loch Bridge 31 that traverse
the
stream.
The second, Loch Bridge 32, is further ahead
and passes over an estuary leading toward
yet another arch, the Springbanks, which
serves as a gateway to the North Meadow.
Continuing south the visitor will eventually
reach the southern gateway to the Ravine,
the Glen Span Arch and will again be met with
the sound of rushing water only to be enchanted
by the sight of a massive cascade high above
them as they pass from beneath the arch. This
source of the Loch is called the First Cascade.
Climbing to the summit of the fall we reach the
northern perimeter of the Pool and the beginning
of a new adventure.
