Friday, December 28, 2007
Chittenango Falls State Park official site
I’d read about Chittenango Falls in several places, including Rich & Sue Freeman’s 200 Waterfalls in Central & Western New York and the excellent Waterfalls of New York State site. I’d even driven through Chittenango on a number of occasions and seen the signs for Chittenango Falls State Park, but somehow had never had the time to actually go there. So today we decided to make the time to stop there on our way to Albany. I especially looked forward to seeing the park, because between chores and the holiday I’ve basically been stuck indoors for the past week and a half, except for driving.
The area of the park was an active industrial site in the 1800’s – no great surprise, given the easy access to the waterfall as a power source. The land was sold to Helen Fairchild and the Chittenango Falls Association in the late 1800’s specifically for public use, and remained a privately owned park until 1922 when she asked the state to take it over, giving us Chittenango Falls State Park.
We followed Gorge Road (Rt 13) south from Chittenango, not sure exactly how far it was to the park… though I took it as a good sign when the road started to wind uphill. We knew we were almost there when we caught a glimpse of a spectacular waterfall, roaring with water, through the trees – it was a real shame the road was too narrow to pull over and take a picture.
Once in the park, we found out that the gorge trail is closed during the winter (no surprise, that – most of the waterfall parks in central and western New York restrict access during the winter months.) So we settled for walking around the top of the falls, visiting the overlooks on both sides. Despite being a very grey day it was very impressive, and I suspect the view from down in the gorge is awesome. Definitely have to visit again when the trail down there is open!
So this didn’t turn out to be quite the outing I had hoped for… I doubt we walked more than a quarter of a mile all told… but we did get to see an impressive waterfall we haven’t visited before, and now we have someplace to go next spring or summer to explore a bit more.
click for a larger image
JMH
