Letchworth State Park, NY

What a magnificent find this was! Many thanks to whomever recommended we stay at this beautiful park! Letchworth SP is located in NW New York state south of Rochester and straddles the Genesee River valley. In this area, the river has carved a beautiful canyon giving the park the nickname of "The Grand Canyon of the East!" and the best state park in the US. The nicknames are warranted!

The park has numerous amenities like very nice campgrounds, playgrounds, hiking and biking trails along the river, at least 2 cafes (one with the best soft serve ice cream I've ever had!) In addition, they have conference areas, pavilions, overlooks, a museum, a dam and much more. The highlight, however, is its 3 main falls - Upper, Middle and Lower that are each breathtaking!

We drove down the length of the park along the river and stopped for photos at the various overlooks to see the river banks steep sides. In many areas they are nearly cliffs! The river runs north towards Rochester so the Lower Falls were the first we encountered and they were beautiful. You have to hike down some 100 or so steps to reach a small plateau and a picturesque stone bridge over the river to get a good view of the falls. The scenery down in the canyon is amazing. The rock walls are made up of thousands of thin layers of sedimentary rock that has shattered from the mountain building processes into small shards that fall everywhere. It's no wonder the river was able to dig so quickly down to make such a spectacular valley!

We then headed to the Upper and Middle Falls that share a parking area. Having heard of the beauty of the Upper Falls we headed there first and were amazed! The Falls are gorgeous and are topped by a train trestle between the tops of the two ridges on each side. Green plants adorn the upper sides of the gorge until bare stone begins and drops into the river bottom. It's really unreal and the photos we took look fake or out of a movie!

The Middle Falls are also amazing! I can't believe 3 such beautiful falls occur in such short span. The other beautiful sight to see is a local hot air balloon company launches from the grassy area near the parking lot for these falls and their color adds to the splendor of the scenery. There's something magical about watching a balloon float majestically out over the river and down stream over the falls!

This is one of those state parks that you just have to experience to believe! BraysAway say "check it out!"