Letchworth State Park and the Grand Canyon of the East

Letchworth State Park and the Grand Canyon of the East

Letchworth State Park is an hour southeast of Niagara Falls, and it is the place where western New York stops being flat farmland and drops 600 feet into a gorge carved by the Genesee River with the same patient violence that carved the Grand Canyon — just on a smaller scale, a greener palette, and with considerably fewer tourists, which is either New York's failure of marketing or its gift to the people who find it.

The park contains three major waterfalls — Upper, Middle, and Lower Falls — each visible from viewing platforms along the gorge rim. Middle Falls is the showstopper: 107 feet of falling water framed by the stone arches of a railroad bridge that crosses the gorge at exactly the angle a photographer would choose, because the railroad engineers were, it turns out, secret aesthetes. The falls are best after rain, when the Genesee runs brown and full and the spray rises high enough to wet the viewing platform.

The Gorge Trail runs seven miles along the rim through forests of hemlock and oak, and the views change with each bend — sometimes the gorge is narrow and deep and the water is directly below, sometimes it widens and the far wall recedes and the river becomes a silver thread on the gorge floor. The Portage Bridge — an iron railroad viaduct that spans the gorge 234 feet above the river — is visible from multiple points and adds an industrial drama to the natural one.

Practical notes: $10 per vehicle entry. The park is large — drive the main road for the overlooks, then pick a trail. The gorge is deep and the stairs to the lower trails are steep. Bring water, layers, and a camera with a wide-angle lens. Fall is peak season for color; the gorge fills with maples and oaks that turn the walls into a study in orange and red that justifies the "Grand Canyon of the East" nickname without exaggeration.