Hiking at Buttermilk Falls State Park & Robert Treman State Park
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Why are there so many gorges in the Finger Lakes region?
Buttermilk Falls State Park official site
Robert Treman State Park official site
Buttermilk Falls photo slideshow
Robert Treman State Park photo slideshow
Apparently "Ithaca is Gorges" is a popular slogan in the Ithaca area, in part because of the number of gorges and waterfalls in relatively close proximity to the city. Last year Ann and I visited Taughannock Falls State Park, just a little ways northwest of Ithaca, and I ran a race at the Filmore Glen State Park to the northeast. Since we were in the area anyways (and since Ann had spent a fairly boring 2 1/2 hours waiting for me to run the Forest Frolic 15k) we decided that after grabbing some lunch we'd do a little hiking at two of the local state parks, both with gorges and waterfalls. After all, what sensible person wouldn't want to spend the afternoon hiking up and down steep trails and stairways after spending two hours running up and down hilly trails in the morning?
Buttermilk Falls State Park
The weather didn't look too promising when we arrived at Buttermilk Falls, but it turned out to be a fairly nice afternoon (though a bit warm and humid.) We spotted the main waterfall immediately on driving into the park - shame they had to go and make the pool beneath the falls a swimming area, but I imagine that brings in a lot of revenue for the park and helps it stay open for people like Ann and me to hike the trails!
We chose to hike up and back on the gorge trail; the rim trail just didn't seem to offer much in the way of views of the stream and waterfalls. Hike "up" is a good description - between the lower parking area and the road at the top of the gorge, there were many, many, many steps and lots of hills, both gradual and steep, but very few level stretches of trail. The gorge was beautiful, with all sorts of cool rock formations and multiple waterfalls. At least that gave us plenty of excuses to stop and catch our breath...
We climbed out of the gorge and visited the upper parking area for a quick rest stop at the top, about 3/4 of a mile from where we started. Then it was time for the climb back down... my bad knees are not fond of downhills, and adding in my legs being somewhat thrashed from the race this morning meant it was very slow going. I was also very hot and a bit dehydrated... I enjoyed the trip back through the gorge (except for all the people who'd appeared, now that the weather was looking better) but was definitely tired and cranky by the time we reached the bottom. But the cool (well, not too warm) drinks waiting in the car helped revive me as we made the five minute drive to the 2nd leg of our Ithaca hiking adventure.
As a quick aside, I have since learned that the Finger Lakes Runners Club holds a 10k trail race at Buttermilk Falls in early June... unfortunately the same day as NIPMUCK. So next year that's not an option (I will be running NIPMUCK, the whole thing, next year!) but maybe in 2009...
Robert Treman State Park
This park left us in a bit of a quandary... the gorge trail is much longer than at Buttermilk (2 1/2 miles as opposed to 3/4 mile) and according to our guide book(Rich and Sue Freeman's 200 Waterfalls in Central and Western New York) involves a lot of climbing and descending all along its length. Given that we were both a bit tired from our earlier exertions, we weren't at all sure we'd be able to hike the entire distance. A bit more research showed that the most interesting features seemed to be closer to the top of the gorge, so in the end we drove to the upper parking area and hiked out of there (an excellent choice, as it turned out.)
The upper parking area includes an old mill which has been converted into a display/educational center and incudes a cool look at how the mill worked. There's also a very nice waterfall behind the mill. From there we started our hike down the trail, which initially was nice but nothing spectacular. After a fairly short walk, however, we entered the actual gorge and were surrounded by cool rock formations and waterfalls.
And a little bit further along - things really opened up!
One of the reasons I wanted to make sure we saw the upper gorge was Lucifer Falls, one of the tallest (115 feet) in the area. As we hiked down through the gorge (and the trail did indeed go up and down... but fortunately also included some level stretches!) we first viewed the top of the falls and then a while later the lower portions. Risking the potential wrath of any rangers, we walked up the creek toward the base of the falls. Very cool!
From there we continued on down the trail, probably for a total distance of 2 miles or so. This is a beautiful park, and the distance from the parking areas seemed to help cut down a bit on the number of folks on the trail... though we did pass quite a few other hikers going in both directions. We somewhat dreaded the hike back to the car, but it really wasn't that bad... the level stretches made it easier than Buttermilk Fall's non-stop climbing/descending, and we stopped at a lot of smaller waterfalls to take pictures.
After we'd returned to the car, we drove down to the lower parking area and walked in to see the Lower Falls... another one which has been converted into a swimming area, to the great detriment of its scenic beauty. This area was also much more crowded, particularly because the park campgrounds are within easy walking distance. I'm very glad we didn't start from this end of the park - I don't know that we would have hiked all the way to the top, and it would have been a real shame to miss what I think were the best parts of the park!
So... don't know if I can really recommend hiking these parks after running a hilly 9 mile race in the morning (though I did survive and enjoyed myself! But I suspect my legs will be thrashed for several days...) But they are definitely beautiful places well worth visiting, and given that they're only 5 minutes apart, combining both parks into a single day's trip sure does make sense. (Taughannock Falls State Park and Fillmore Glen State Park are two others that are relatively close ie. within half an hour's drive - both also feature some great waterfalls and beautiful scenery. Ann and I visited Taughannock Falls last June, and I ran a race at Fillmore Glen last July.) If you do decide to visit several parks in one day, save your receipt from the first one - it's good for admission to any NYS park visited on that same day.
JMH
