July 26 – Upper and Middle Falls

It was another very hot day. We headed down to the very south end of the park to hike the start of the Gorge Trail. This is not a gorge trail like the ones in the other parks that follows the river at the bottom of the gorge. It follows the north/west rim. The entire trail is 7 miles one way. We only did 1 mile to get us to the Middle Falls before we turned around.

The trail starts near the top of the Highbridge railroad trestle.

It is very tall and spindly. We did see a train go over it later in the day but we were far down river by then.

 

The Upper Falls are just below the bridge. This meant we had a steep set of switch-backed stairs to get down.

We were looking at this blasted out rock when we noticed the sign on the rocks. We are pretty sure we didn’t touch the poison ivy.

At the bottom of the stairs was a pretty bridge over a small stream.

From the first viewpoint we were too close to see much of the falls.

Here is a distorted 180 degree panorama looking up and down stream.

Farther down we got a more face on view.

When my dad read that we were in Letchworth he dug through his old photos. Apparently when we lived in Welland, Ontario we had come here for a look in 1958 shortly after I was born. So even though I don’t remember, I guess this is my second visit to the park.

Here is the viewpoint where he took one of his pictures.

His picture.

And mine cropped to approximately the same view. Not much has changed in almost 60 years.

From here we walked the almost flat path down to the top of the Middle Falls. Of course there is a huge parking lot between the two falls. If we had known and wanted to skip the stairs we should have parked there.

Next to the waterfall was a bay where the spray gave us a nice double rainbow.

A shot of Jennie on the trail around the end of the bay. She is about 1/3 in from the middle left.

And back at me.

Father along to a more face on view. Amazingly they actually trim the overgrowth here so that we had an unimpeded view.

On the hill overlooking the falls there is an old inn that is now a restaurant.

We looked at the menu and it didn’t look that expensive but today we had brought our lunch.

We found a shady spot on the overlook.

Jennie is getting more confident, hanging over the edge.

We watched the train go over the trestle.

We had planned to a go farther but the trail started to steeply climb to a viewpoint that we knew we could drive to. With the heat and the thought of those stairs at the end, we turned around.

Walking by the a parking lot, we saw this couple out for a cruise.

Up we go.

We drove the short (by car) distance to Inspiration Point. From here you can see a the Middle Falls, a bit of the Upper Falls and the Highbridge.

My dad also sent a shot from here. His version.

And as close as I could get.

And then back to the RV.