A Visit to Letchworth Falls
Upstate New York was a revelation to me. It was not on my radar. I’d never had a thought to travel there.
I married into it.
And though she grew up in Nashville, my wife was born in Rochester and her entire family is rooted there.
In the ’90s, my in-laws relocated from Tennessee back to the Rochester area, buying a place overlooking Canandaigua Lake, one of the deep, long, glacially-formed bodies of water collectively known as the Finger Lakes.
I’ll share more on the Finger Lakes in the future — this post is about a day trip we took while visiting the family at Canandaigua a few summers ago.
The Finger Lakes area is known for its many “gullys” — hillside shale-crusted ravines carved by thousands of years of water finding its path of least resistance. As the soil eroded over the centuries, the crumbly shale hillsides were exposed and began to chip away.
The largest of them all is a gorge chiseled deep into the landscape by the Genesee River in southwestern New York. It’s filled with dramatic waterfalls and scenic vistas. Letchworth State Park is often referred to as the “Grand Canyon of the East,” and with good reason as you’ll see in the video above (and check out the photos, too!).
If you find yourself in the neighborhood, I highly recommend spending a day there.
Letchworth State Park, Mt Morris, New York
★ For more information, visit the state park’s website.
