Randi Minetor - Hiking Waterfalls New York: A Guide to the States Best Waterfall Hikes

Husband- and-wife team Randi and Nic Minetor have collaborated on eighteen books about hiking, exploring historic cities, Americas national parks, and birds and nature. Their popular books on outdoor activities in New York State include five books in FalconGuides Best Easy Day Hikes serieson Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany, and the Hudson River Valleyand they could not be more delighted to expand their travels into the Finger Lakes, the Adirondacks, and the Catskills. In addition they worked together on eight Quick Reference Guides to the native birds, trees, and wildflowers of New York State, New York City, Long Island, and the Mid-Atlantic states. Avid birders and seasoned road trippers, the Minetors also collaborated on Scenic Routes and Byways New York for Globe Pequot Press, and the best- selling Backyard Birding: A Guide to Attracting and Identifying Birds for Lyons Press.

When not in the car or on the trail, Randi is a journalist in theater technology and medicine, and Nic is the resident lighting designer for several theater and opera companies in upstate New York. The Minetors live in Rochester, New York.

To all of the land preservation professionals and volunteers throughout the state of New York

The land trusts,
The conservancies,
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation,
The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation,
The parks and planning departments in cities, towns, and counties across the state,
The hiking clubs that maintain the trails,
And the private organizations that make open spaces their top priority...

... to all of you, we dedicate this book. Thank you for everything you do to make New York State such a wondrous place.

An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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Falcon and FalconGuides are registered trademarks and Make Adventure Your Story is a trademark of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

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Copyright 2019 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
A previous edition of this book was published by Falcon Publishing, Inc. in 2014.

Photos by Nic Minetor unless otherwise noted
Maps by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Information available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
ISBN 978-1-4930-4103-9 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-4930-4104-6 (e-book)

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI / NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

The author and The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., assume no liability for accidents happening to, or injuries sustained by, readers who engage in the activities described in this book.

We must begin by thanking all of the people at FalconGuides and Globe Pequot Press who work so hard to bring books like this one to those of us who love the great outdoors. To acquisitions editor David Legere, production editor Kristen Mellitt, layout artist Melissa Evarts, cartographer Melissa Baker, proofreader Ann Seifert, and the rest of the staff at Falcon, we tip our Tilley hats in gratitude for the beautiful books they create from our words and pictures.

We also must thank our hardworking agent, Regina Ryan, whose careful supervision of our creative endeavors keeps us on track and always working on a book.

As ever, we are awestruck by New Yorks community of professionals and volunteers who devote their careers and their personal time to preserving nature and promoting New York State tourism. In particular, we thank Eric Atkins, Michael Bailey, Carolyn Barker, John Barron, Douglas Bassett, Aaron Bennett, Angela Berti, Adam Bosch, Tim Bresett, Diane Carlton, Amy Collins, Steve Colt, Laura Connor, Debbie in Montour Falls, Noreen Dechon, Priscilla Edwards, Emily Eisman, Bea Evans, Steve Feeney, Bernie Feldman, James Hart, Tom Hicks, Jim Howe, Maureen Kingston, Matt Levy, Eric Lind, Melissa in Clarendon, Ben Morse, Randy Nemecek, Tom Ortmeyer, Frank Parks, Margaret Potter, Colleen Randolph-Howard, Kathryn Reiss, Rebecca Schultz, Joy Scism, Brian Scriven, Greg Steiner, Jr., Ed Tremblay, Laura Tully, John Van-Valen, and David Winchell for their assistance, careful review of our hike descriptions, and the wealth of information they offered us.

And to all the friends and family who support our travels and our efforts to create books that showcase the great state of New York in all of its ecstatic splendor, we can hardly express our continued gratitude. We truly could not do what we do without all of you.

If youre going to love hiking to waterfalls in New York State as much as we do, first youve got to get over Niagaraand we dont mean in a barrel.

Its tough on all the other waterfall hikes in New York to suffer constant comparisons with one of the seven natural wonders of the United States, especially when the gargantuan Niagara is just down the road. Its gorgeous, one hiker may say to another as they stand together and admire Taughannock Falls just north of Ithaca, or Kaaterskill Falls in the heart of the Catskill Mountains, but its no Niagara.

Perhaps not, but every one of the waterfalls we chose for this bookfrom more than 400 named falls scattered throughout the statepresents hikers with its own natural wonders, whether its encased in winters icy grasp on a frigid January day or surrounded by the brilliant crimson, amber, and aubergine of a northeastern October.

With altitudes from sea level to 5,344 feet at the top of Mount Marcy, two Great Lakes, eleven Finger Lakes, more than 70,000 miles of rivers and streams, and as much as 177 inches of snow annually in the highest regions, New York State contains a sizable share of the nations rushing water. Tumbling down from the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains, the 200-foot- high ridgeline of the Niagara Escarpment, and the gentler Bristol Hills at the states western end, New Yorks waterways swell in late winter and early spring and often continue to cascade spectacularly throughout the summer. The recent spate of temperate winters keeps most falls flowing straight through the coldest months.

If youre not from New York State, you may have no idea that the states 47,836 square miles of land north of New York City contain some of the most picturesque places in the nation. The I-87 corridor, for exampleThe Adirondack Northway to upstate residentsonce earned the praise of Parade magazine as Americas most scenic highway. You can access many of the states waterfalls from this majestic road as it winds through the mountains, meandering by Lake Placid, Lake George, and a number of other sparkling gems.

Down in the states Southern Tier, the town of Ithaca distributes bold, double-entendre bumper stickers that proclaim, Ithaca is Gorges. Indeed it is, with more than its fair share of steep geological crevasses that deepen each year as the glacially created rivers that sculpted them continue to flow between their walls. Each of these gorges sports clusters of waterfalls, some as high as 165 feet.