the Way of the Turtle

SNOW & WATERFALLS
A Visit to Letchworth State Park
Saturday, March 29, 2008

Last week I wanted to visit Letchworth and see the waterfalls (including some smaller waterfalls that were either dried up or obscured by the foliage when we'd gone previously.) Unfortunately, between the weather and a last-minute trip to Syracuse, that just didn't work. But we woke up to sunny weather today, which meant a trip to Letchworth was on!

The first surprise was the amount of snow there... we should have brought our XC skis with us and gone skiing! In most spots the snow was at least ankle deep, and in some there was even more.

The water levels were up, which I expected... this is the first time I've actually seen water behind the Mount Morris Dam. I also saw a hawk and some turkey vultures while we were at the dam overlooks. A little further down we parked in a very empty lot and hiked through the snow to see a small waterfall running down the side of the gorge. We actually walked a ways along the snow-covered trail to try to see the top of that waterfall, but ended up turning around when it looked unlikely that we'd get a decent view.

From there we headed south on the main park road, and found the second surprise - the road was closed just past the Perry entrance. In retrospect that's not that surprising - other than the road and surrounding woods, there's not a lot to be seen in that section of the park, and it probably saves money and time to leave it unplowed in the winter (at least, I'm assuming it's closed all winter long.) So we left the park and I pulled out my maps to figure out how to get to one of the southern entrances so we could see the major waterfalls.

more to come...