the Way of the Turtle

WHAT A SURPRISE... A WATERFALL...
1 Mile Walk at Cohoes Falls
Wednesday, August 25, 2010

With the Mohawk River running fairly high after all the rain over the last few days, I was pretty sure Cohoes Falls would have plenty of water rushing over it - which is unusual for this time of year, when the water gets diverted to the Barge Canal and the power plant. Checking the USGS data (along with the daily pictures they post) told me I was right - from Sunday afternoon through Monday the water nlevels rose almost 8 feet. I was heading in the wrong direction to stop there yesterday, but I was confident that the falls would still be pretty impressive today.

I started out at Cohoes Falls Park just south of the power station, which gives a nice view of the falls - if you don't mind the power lines running across the river right in front of the view. Fortunately they're more annoying than anything else. When I walked to the other end of the park to take a couple of photos of the river and the gorge, a goldfinch came zipping in, landed on some thistles just a short distance away, and proceeded to grab what seeds he could while I tried to take his picture. I'm guessing he didn't realize how close I was, because once I tried to move even closer for a better view he took right off.

After that I walked up the street to Falls View Park. There were geese and ducks in the power canal, and as I walked by I flushed a blue heron as well, who flew across the canal. Crossing the bridge over the canal takes a bit of getting used to, as it vibrates up and down pretty extensively. Nice view of the falls, and initially no one else around. Since I didn't have my bike with me for once, I walked down the stairs to the water level access... while the steps down to the floodplain were closed, I was able to take a path to a platform overlooking the tailrace of the power plant (where the water flows back into river.) From there I had a good view of the many gulls swooping through the air downstream from the falls.

JMH