Documenting a visit to Letchworth State Park in early July on a rainy morning. Called “the Grand Canyon of the East” it’s an impressive river gorge where the Genesee River is cutting its way though a variety of Devonian Age sedimentary rocks. The gorge is 550 feet deep in places and contains three notable waterfalls of the Genesee River.
The Park has a wide variety of trails, picnic and camping grounds, a nature center, an inn and a museum as well. Of historic interest is the occupation by the Senaca of the area, traces of an old canal (Genesee Valley Canal), the viaduct (railroad bridge) across the gorge near the southern end, a modern (1950s) flood control dam near the northern end, and a lot of interesting stonework due to CCC work during the 1930s.
(Aside: The river bed is generally off-limits now but I do recall being on it myself during an earlier visit in the 1970s.)
Enough background. On with the pictures! (and there are a lot of them.)
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The tour will start from the south (upstream) end of the gorge. As it turns out the park entrance at that end in Portageville was closed and the main park road itself was closed along with close access to the upper falls and railroad trestle. This also cut off access to a trail I wanted to hike, so I made do.
Just above the Upper Falls is a tall viaduct where the railroad crosses the gorge. It’s visible in the top of the photo used with the diary title. (It appears there is some heavy construction going on there, and possibly the source of the road closures there.)
The uppermost strata on the gorge is Nunda sandstone, named after a nearby village.
A little further downstream are the Middle Falls, which are the highest of the three.
The Glen Iris Inn is located overlooking the Middle Falls.
More below the fold.
And a mile or so downstream we get to the Lower Falls.
Only one trail crosses the river in the park and the bridge it uses is located below the Lower Falls.
The gorge winds further north after the falls.
Of note is that access to the Lower Falls trail and the bridge involves going down a long series of stone stairs. Constructed in the 1930s by the CCC. Very nice stonework, and I took a few photos.
At the north end of the gorge near the park entrance at Mt Morris, NY lies a flood control dam built between 1948 and 1952.
There was also a Nature Center in the park which opened on 2016. I stopped there and also hiked a few trails in the woods right around there. So all the wildlife/flower photos are collected here in one spot.
The gorge itself is not that old. Glacial activities 10,000-12,000 years ago blocked the river and it had to start cutting a new passage. There are a lot of glacial features from that time period in the area; morraines, drumlins, large deposits of unsorted sand and gravel, etc.
I had seen some of this blooming by the roadside while driving up from PA to NY, and was wondering what it was. Appeared to be a similar color to the orange day-lily that was blooming, but much shorter is “brushier”.
The butterfly garden at the Nature Center was centered around native plants if possible. And they also had a guide at the front desk that listed all they plants in the garden. One ranger pointed out that some were hard to find since the deer tended to eat them.
I also saw a few Chantrelles growing.
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Now It's Your Turn
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