Letchworth State Park, New York - August 20th to 23, 2021
Letchworth State Park was another place not too far from where we used to live in New York, but never managed to visit. It was a great park to explore before heading to Endicott to relive old memories and catch up with friends.
Friday we drove from Fort Niagara to our next destination, Letchworth State Park near Castile, New York. Along the way, we stopped at Sweet Life Country Store in Elba for ice cream. A scoop of Dutch chocolate and hostess mint sat on top of Right Buddy’s (RB’s) waffle cone, but not for long. It was very tasty. Likewise, Left Buddy (LB) enjoyed his vanilla shake. The store serves Oliver’s Candies and ice cream. It looked like the factory for Oliver’s Candies was just behind the Country Store. However, Oliver’s Candies main store is in the neighboring town of Batavia. Sweet Life also sells hand-crafted gifts and Circle B Winery wines.
As usual, we arrived at our campsite in time to make dinner. We tried sitting outside in our camp chairs, but the mosquitoes drove us back inside the van. RB’s tolerance for bugs was pretty low. Her legs were still healing from the sand flea bites of a few days earlier.
Like we typically do, we drove the length of the park to get a feel for it the first full day in the park. Heading south from the campground on Saturday, we turned around at the Portageville Entrance and stopped at the points of interest on the way back. Letchworth Park is a long and skinny park, encompassing the gorge carved by the Genesee River which flows at the bottom of the gorge. The Mount Morris Dam marks the north end of the park.
The first parking area is at the top of Upper Falls, under a tall railroad bridge. The Gorge Trail starts here. We followed the trail down the steps to almost the bottom, taking in the views of the falls as we went. The Upper Falls are more impressive than we expected, and that is just days after we visited Niagara Falls (Niagara Falls, New York - August 18th to 19th, 2021). The Upper Falls are by no means the same scale as Niagara, but you can get closer to them. They were large enough to create a spray you could feel and a mist rose up from the bottom. The falls were flowing strong. Smaller waterfalls along the gorge wall trickled down next to the falls.
Our next stop was the large parking area in between the Upper and Middle Falls. It was a short walk to the bottom of the Upper Falls in one direction and a slightly longer walk to the Middle Falls in the other direction. After taking in more views of the Upper Falls, we sat down at a nearby picnic table and ate our lunch before walking over to the Middle Falls.
On the way to the Middle Falls, there is an open field where they launch hot air balloons early in the mornings, which you can ride for a price. It is operated by Balloons Over Letchworth and it’s $310 per person for a one hour flight. There is also a snack bar that serves Perry’s ice cream along with other items. We opted to wait until after we visited the Lower Falls before having our ice cream.
The Middle Falls are larger than the Upper Falls. The trail takes you through the heavy mist. The ground is soaking wet with all the moisture, with the collected water flowing across the trail back to the river.
On our drive to the Lower Falls parking area, we stopped at the Inspiration Point Overlook. From the overlook, you can see both the Upper and Middle Falls from a distance.
We parked at the lower parking lot near the Lower Falls Restaurant. The walk to the Lower Falls is almost a mile from there. We learned later that parking at the Lower Falls picnic area makes the walk about 0.3 of a mile shorter. There are two viewpoints of the Lower Falls. The easy view is along the trail that stays up on the rim and comes alongside the waterfall. The lower viewpoint is walking down quite a few slippery stairs to the CCC bridge that spans the river.
From the bridge, you can look up the river for a good view of the Lower Falls. The lower trail also continues along the bank past the bridge and comes right up next to the Lower Falls. At that point you feel the spray and mist from the falls. We did both. We almost missed continuing further up the trail past the bridge, but glad we continued. The lower trail is very wet, muddy, and slippery, but it is a hard clay mud, so your feet do not sink too far into the mud. The trail also continues once you cross the bridge, but we did not venture up that trail.
Now we felt like we burned enough calories to justify eating ice cream. Who are we kidding? We can also justify eating ice cream. RB stuck with the flavors she likes, a waffle cone with chocolate and mint-ting-a-ling. LB continued his streak of vanilla milkshakes. We both enjoyed our treats. Perry’s ice cream is made in Akron, New York. It is a winner in our book!
Continuing our drive along Park Road, heading north, we stopped at all the overlooks along the way. We decided to continue past the campground and check out the northern part of the park. We were considering a long hike the next day, thinking about taking Trail #20 along the rim in the north. It’s a good thing we drove up to the dam to check it out. It changed our minds on what trail to hike the next day. The better scenery is definitely in the southern half of the park. In the middle of the park, there is not much of a gorge. As you approach the dam, the gorge becomes deeper, but it is not as pretty as in the south. Also, because of the dam, the river is not flowing very fast and becomes almost a lake. Then we saw the trail. It follows alongside a chainlink fence not far from the Park Road. It did not look very inviting. However, the Highbanks Recreation Area with its large swimming pool did look inviting. It would be a great place to bring your kids to burn off some energy and to cool down on a hot day.
The mosquitoes did not bother us much during the day, but as we were cooking dinner back at our campsite, they came calling once again. We hastily cooked dinner outside, then spent the rest of the evening inside the van again. We started researching stand-alone screen shelters. Sitting inside a screen shelter would be nicer than sitting inside the van.
Sunday we were still debating where to hike. We drove to the Lower Falls parking area and hiked from there. First we hiked down the Lee’s Landing Trail (Trail #5) to the river. A group of rafters started down the trail in front of us and turned off on a spur to the right to load into the rafts. A rental company, Adventure Calls Outfitters, operates from the Lower Falls, providing guided rafting and kayak trips on the Genesee River. It is about an hour on the river from Lee’s Landing to St. Helena Picnic Area.
Lee’s Landing was only a couple of miles round trip, so we headed north on the Gorge Trail (Trail #1). It pretty much followed the road and went to all the same overlooks we could reach by car. There were sections that were wooded and included a couple of views of the gorge and river that we didn’t see by car. We turned around at the Great Bend Overlook. Our total distance for the day was 7.3 miles, with an elevation gain of 837 feet which we completed in three and a half hours. We counted our hike as hike #35 of our 52 Hike Challenge.
Of course we bought ice cream at the Lower Falls Restaurant again. Same drill as the day before. RB with her waffle cone of chocolate and mint-ting-a-ling and LB with his vanilla shake. We really mixed it up, though. The mint was on the bottom instead of the top and LB had whipped cream and a cherry on top of his milkshake due to a miscommunication. We’re living dangerously now!
Back at the campsite was a repeat of the previous two nights. Hustling to cook our dinner outside, then escaping the mosquitoes by sitting inside the van. We opened up the back doors and the sliding door with our screens in place, so we had good air flow and a better view of the outside. However, those screen shelters are sounding pretty good to us now.
Monday was a drive from Letchworth State Park to Endicott, New York. We used to live in Endicott and have not been back to visit in almost thirty years. We arrived around noon. First we shopped at Wegmans, the same grocery store we used to frequent when we lived in the area. It is a large store and it was packed with people. This was midday on a Monday. What was this store like on the weekend?
For lunch, we had a picnic at Highland Park. The park has a swimming pool and a carousel. The Binghamton area is called the Carousel Capitol of the World. They have six antique carousels in operation in different parks around the area. And you can ride any of them for free. Our son rode them all the time when we lived here. Of course, after we finished eating, we had to ride the carousel in Highland Park.
Then it was time for ice cream. We found an ice cream shop not far from the park called Wolfie’s Ice Cream, which served Hershey’s ice cream. RB tried the extreme chocolate and mint moose tracks. Being Hershey’s, LB had a chocolate milkshake. Tasty.
After driving around town for a little while, clearing the cobwebs out of our memories of the place, we ate dinner at Deacon’s Bench, just down the hill from where we used to live. We split an order of Buffalo wings and fries, just like we often did about thirty years ago. Only this time we split an order of 20 instead of an order of 40 wings. We were younger with high metabolisms back then and the wings were smaller, or at least it seemed that way.
After dinner we drove by our old house. The large deck that we built in the back looked like it was still there. Passing by the old IBM Club was very sad. The pool, buildings, tennis courts, and pedestrian bridge have been abandoned and are beyond repair. What an eyesore. They need to be bulldozed and filled in. It is sad to see how much they have deteriorated.
On Tuesday, we picked up a half dozen donuts along with apple cider from the Cider Mill and ate our breakfast at Round Top Picnic Area, overlooking the Susquehanna River. The Cider Mill is another old stomping ground. Picking up warm donuts and cider on the way into work in the morning was a pretty regular occurrence in the fall back then. Another special treat back then was attending a live play at the Cider Mill Playhouse, now called the Cider Mill Stage.
We spent the rest of the morning driving around the area, recalling former times. We went by RB’s old apartment, SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Broome (Broome Community College), the IBM plant, and the IBM Glendale Lab. Most of the plant is unoccupied and the buildings are crumbling, perhaps beyond repair. Glendale Lab, at least the front portion that we saw, is occupied by New York State offices. Signs were up that space is available for lease.
We picked up a medium Tony’s pizza and headed to Highland Park to meet our friends Jeff and Cheryl for lunch. They brought Nirchi’s Pizza along with some other snack items. We had a lovely time spending several hours sitting there, enjoying the familiar tastes of Endicott pizza, and catching up. Afterwards we gave them a tour of the van before Jeff, who is also a photographer, had to get ready for his senior picture shoot that evening. Jeff and Cheryl both retired last spring. They have a small camper and are planning on traveling more now that they are retired. They didn’t want to join us on our Alaska trip, but seemed interested in joining us in the Florida Keys.
Afterwards, we headed over to Wolfie’s Ice Cream again. This time RB had chocolate peanut butter cup and mint chip. She felt she needed to have the chocolate peanut butter cup once again for nostalgia’s sake. We ran a few shopping errands and then headed to Lupo’s Char Pit for dinner.
Six inch pork spiedies fit the bill. RB had a side of fries and LB had coleslaw. The place was cash only. The meat in the spiedies were so moist and flavorful that no condiments are required. RB wondered how they get the meat so moist. Spiedies are a local specialty. They are marinated cubes of meat cooked on a skewer and usually served on a hoagie bun. The only other place in the country that serves spiedies that we’re aware of is Roma’s Italian in Cary, North Carolina. Enough IBM’ers migrated from Endicott to Raleigh that the spiedies migrated with them.
Mixing the old with the new made for a great visit to the state of New York. New adventures are fun and exciting, but visiting old, familiar places, to reminisce about days gone by, can be just as rewarding.
Check out our related video: Letchworth State Park, New York
(RB)