Western New York Phase II - Lechtworth State Park

After we left Bristol Campground and separated from the girls and their handlers we had a short, lonely drive to Lechtworth State Park in Mt Morris, NY.   We were looking forward to our stay in this park that the girls had visited and described as beautiful and fun!

It is a long north to south park relative to its width.  About 17 mi long and its dominating feature is the deep gorge that runs thru it with a river at the bottom of the gorge which is nearly 600 feet deep in much of the park.   The river had caved the gorge over the millennium and in the last several hundred years had been the source of repeated flooding of Rochester and other cities downstream.   To control the Genesee River and the devastating floods the US Corps of Engineers built Mt Morris dam which is in the park.   Also, in the park are three pretty waterfalls - the Lower Falls, the Middle Falls, and the Upper Falls on the Genesee River.

Genesee River at bottom of gorge

Mt Morris Dam on Genesee River

We started off with a tour of the dam.   It was an impressive structure but did not seem to have much water behind it.  At that point the river seemed like a lazy, small river meandering down the middle of this huge gorge!  We learned this was a dry dam and it rose about 230 ft above the river bed! At its base passing thru the dam were 9 large rectangular conduits that could be opened or closed to allow the water to pass through.  The dam was constructed to control the water flow by opening and closing these conduits.  During normal weather conditions only a few of the conduits were open and the water passed through pretty much unimpeded.  However, during high water events the conduits could be closed and water pooled behind the dam rather then ravaging the valley below the dam as it had done about every 7 years since the early 1800's causing large economic loss and extreme problems for the folks downstream.  

During the 1972 event this section of the gorge

 

was under several hundred feet of water!

This waterfall was barely a ripple in the pool behind the dam in 1972!

The dam was finished in 1952 at cost of $25 million dollars and it has proved its worth about every 7 years since.  In 1972 the remnants of Hurricane Agnes dumped abnormally huge amounts of water on the area.  There was more rain then ever recorded in the area prior to (or since) and the pool behind the dam was about 15 miles long and the water came within 4 feet of topping the dam!  Estimated damage to Rochester would have been in excess of $300 BILLION, but no damage was incurred because the Mt Morris dam was there and performed as designed!

The 1972 pool nearly filled part of the gorge!

BJ the rock hound at one of the streams

Remains of the CCC camp that had existed here.

Also, in the park were some beautiful hiking trails (but the roads were generally too hilly for any carving on the Trikkes).  We did enjoy some nice hikes with beautiful overlooks however. 

Another view of the gorge

A stream that feeds into Genesee River

While we enjoyed our stay here it was time to move on by the end of the week.  We were headed for a Thousand Trails Campground in OH.  Thousand Trails is a membership organization we belong to and use there campgrounds barely enough to justify membership.  We were ready for full hook-ups and some downtime from traveling and moving every week or less which we had mainly been doing since leaving FL in April!