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| The Midde Falls, From Glen Iris Inn |
It’s 7:00 and I am sitting here in our tiny room. Like
something out of a doll house, at the Glen Iris Inn, overlooking the Middle
Falls at Letchworth Park, 96 miles from Woodlawn.
There’s just enough room for two single beds, a dresser and
just enough space to get in and out, not much more…not your Comfort, I mean
Hampton Inn.
We left the lake around 8:15, a surprisingly cloudy day, so
we were wondering what it was going to be like at the park. The drive was pleasant, once we got off
of #86 at Randolph and started heading to Ellicottville, then Arcade, a neat
little town with its own steam engine train, which takes people for two hour
trips on weekends. We stopped
there for a coffee and sandwich, as its only about forty five minutes from the
park. This is the third time I
have been to the park, the second time with Evie. As we got closer, there’s a huge wind farm I had forgotten
about, set obviously on farmlands, thirty to forty of them, huge windmills on
both sides of the road.
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| View Of Genesee River Gorge From Hiking Trail |
We stopped at the Visitor’s Center, got maps, then parked at
the Glen Iris, hoping to get a ride to the other end of the gorge, so we could
hike back.
They were working on
the road, so there was little traffic, so we just decided to hike the gorge
trail from the Glen Iris about half way, to Lee’s Landing, where they put the
canoes in and back.
The pathway
along the gorge is great for hiking, usually a stone wall on the river side,
affording the hikers views of the gorge, the Middle and Lower Falls, and the
walk is usually in the shade of a pine forest, so it was cool much of the
way.
We passed up walking to the
Lower Falls since we did it last year but may do it this morning.
We had our lunch after two hours of
hiking, around 1:15 at an area that also had a restaurant open for lunch, which
we did not realize or we would not have brought our lunch.
Our hike back seemed long, as we were
both tired, my feet were sore from my shoes, so we did not ogle the gorge on
our way back.
Surprisingly, we did
not see many people hiking the Gorge trail like us, perhaps a total of ten or
twelve though at various venues, like the Lower Falls, there were lots of
parked cars and people. We ended up walking for six miles; no wonder my feet were sore.
We got back to our starting point, the Glen Iris Inn, about
3:00, checked in and relaxed in our room for an hour or so. I took a nap, Evie read and about 4:30,
we went downstairs, sat on their great outdoor porch, had a beer, and talked
some with couples from Williamsville and Lakeview, one who was celebrating
their 25th anniversary.
In fact, it seemed like most couples were our age, celebrating birthdays
or anniversaries.
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| The Falls And Youth |
We then walked down to the Middle Falls, just out side the
porch of the Inn and watched as three crazy guys somehow worked their way down
the cliff to the seemingly still waters, just before the falls edge.
In fact, as the pictures show, they
walked up to the edge of the falls, sat down on the wet rocks, looking straight
down to the bottom.
They walked
and fooled around out there for at least 15 minutes, then started back.
We happened to be walking by when they
climbed up the cliff, so we got their email to send them pictures, crazy youths
but kind of cool, all from Dunkirk and the Fredonia area.
As we continued our walk, a police car
drove up, a policewoman jumped out and ran up asking if were people in the
water (strictly against park rules).
We said there were but they were long gone, so she got back in her car
and drove off.
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| Crazy Youth |
We got back to the Inn’s porch about 6:15, and I got cleaned
up and Evie stayed down and ordered us another beer, which we enjoyed as the
sky began to darken.
We went into
the dining room at 7:00, with about ten other couples.
We like the dining room, old fashion
and not too busy.
We ordered a
great bottle of wine,
Apothic, a
blend, and we both ordered the same thing, New York strips with onion
rings.
Needless to say, we were
happy with a turtle cheesecake for dessert.
We did not finish until about 9:00 when we went outside,
walked down the road a ways to take pictures of the falls and sky at night,
then went upstairs, to our tiny bedroom to read and fall asleep, no wifi, no
phone connections in this part of the world.
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| Glen Iris Inn |
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| Enjoying The Porch |
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| Writing My Blog After A Day Of Hiking |
A note on the park. It’s called ‘The Grand Canyon of The
East,’ and comprises 14,350 acres along the Genesee River. Within the park, there are three water
falls, one which is 107 feet high.
The cliffs on either side of the river reach up to 600 feet. We stayed at the Glen Iris Inn, the
former home of William Pryor
Letchworth, whose philanthropic efforts at preserving the area made the park possible.
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| Night Sky |
We will have breakfast at the Inn sometime this morning,
then drive off to the Upper Falls, do some more hiking, then seven miles north
to the St. Helena picnic area and do some more hiking before heading back to the lake, but
stopping in Ellicottville to browse, perhaps eat.
