Letchworth State Park: A Unique New York Park

There is no way to learn or see everything about a park on your first trip. This being said, we visited a new park in search of colorful leaves this fall. Letchworth State Park in western New York.

Letchworth is at the west end of the Finger Lakes Region. The coolest thing about this park is the valley carved out by the Genesee River. It’s a huge, wooded valley, known as the “Grand Canyon of the East,” according to literature and website. Letchworth has hiking trails and picnic areas along the top of the ridge. Waterfalls. Activities in different seasons. It costs $10 to get into the park.

By the time we checked into our hotel, my husband is finished with tent camping for the year because of our “Soggy Tent Camping” experience at Cherry Springs, we had only a few hours to explore. So, we went to the Mount Morris Dam, constructed by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

We came for the fall foliage on this trip, remember. And this time, we were too early for full leaf color.

The Visitor’s Center for the dam is on the opposite side of the canyon of Letchworth State Park. We discovered we were too late for the free tour of the Dam. We watched the informative video about its construction and how it was built to stop the occasional flooding of downstream towns, like Rochester. The Genesee is an old river, and it flows north.

After a tour of the museum, we went outside to peer over the top of the dam. Two hundred and thirty feet below lay the riverbed of the Genesee. I white-knuckled the fence along the edge of the dam. There was only a trickle left of the river north of the dam. We learned that the Genesee flows through the dam naturally “until heavy rain increases the risk of flooding.” The dam can “store excess water until it can be released safely,” after any storm. From park literature.

The next day after breakfast, we ventured into Letchworth to explore. We followed Park Road from the Mt. Morris entrance to Portageville at the south end of the park. One two-lane road through the park. This is a rugged park. Carry in. Carry your trash out of the park. This is because animals kept getting into or knocking over the trash cans.

The overlooks are stunning. Cliffs as high as “600 feet in places.” [from literature] Thick, lush forests fill our vision. We hiked a distance on the trails, then turned around. Picnic areas spring up along Park Road, some with shale tabletops like at “Tea Table.”

“Sixty-six miles of hiking trails.” [From literature and website.] We did hike to the three waterfalls along the gorge at the south end of the park. There are stairways to the falls. Always easier down than up. The Upper, Middle, and Lower Falls are worth the journey. Middle Falls, the tallest falls in Letchworth at 107-feet, is lit up at night and makes for a romantic setting.

We toured the museum at Letchworth and watched the video at the Visitor’s Center. William Pryor Letchworth was a champion of social justice, in the early 1900’s. He donated his land and home, now called The Glen Iris Inn, to the State of New York, and the park bears his name.

As I said in the beginning of this post, we can’t experience everything in a park on our first trip. We only had one day at the park. This is why national and state parks need to be explored, time and again. Rafting the river, sightseeing in a hot air balloon, horseback riding or cross-country skiing. In different seasons, in different weather, or at different times in your life. This is what makes nature exciting, makes life worth experiencing. 

How about you? Do you visit a park time and again? Learn or see new things? Have new experiences? Please share any thoughts you may have in the comments. Thanks for visiting! And enjoy your adventures. Happy Thanksgiving!