“Oh my golly!”

“More steps!” (Photo by BobbaLew.)

My brother Bill and his wife Sue from northern Delaware came up to visit me two weekends ago.
He was on vacation, so he drove up Thursday, July 25th, we would hike the gorge at Watkins Glen State Park in Watkins Glen Friday, July 26th, and then would visit Letchworth State Park on Saturday, July 27th.
He would drive home Sunday, July 28th.


(Photo by BobbaLew.)


(Photo by BobbaLew.)

So we met in the parking-lot at Watkins Glen State Park to begin hiking the long gorge.
It’s over a mile and all uphill.
A creek has cut a narrow gorge into the rock to get from the top down to the valley floor.
Apparently the most recent receding ice-age glacier cut out the valley the village of Watkins Glen is in.
North of Watkins Glen is giant Seneca Lake, one of the Finger Lakes.
There are 10 Finger Lakes, and Seneca Lake is one of the largest. The Finger Lakes run south to north, and were carved by the receding glacier.
The Finger Lakes look like the imprint of a giant hand in the terrain — a 10-fingered hand, although some lakes are tinyl.
Watkins Glen is a tourist attraction. People from all over come to hike the gorge. I heard various Asian languages.
Hiking the gorge is all uphill; there are at least 800 steps.
There are another 180 steps up out of the gorge at the end, although they might be part of the 800 steps. It’s not clear.
All I could think of was my mother, worn out and complaining about the steps.
“Oh my golly!” she’d cry. “More steps!”
Every 75 or so feet, another staircase.
And quite a bit of the gorge trail had puddles from water-splash and springs. You were continually skirting puddles.
The creek was draining through the gorge, and water was also coming off the gorge walls.
At one point you walked behind a waterfall — see pictures below.


The walk-behind waterfall. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


Behind the waterfall. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Finally we reached the top — or the end.
We hiked up out of the gorge, on the 180-step staircase called “Jacob’s Ladder,” to a plateau with bathrooms and a snack/gift shop.
You can tell you’re at the top, because a railroad-bridge crosses the gorge at the top.


The railroad-bridge at the top. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

It’s Norfolk Southern’s Corning-Secondary, the old New York Central line from the main at Lyons down to Williamsport, PA, via Corning.
Some has been abandoned (into Williamsport), and some was sold to shortlines (I’m thinking of Tioga Central).
But Lyons to Corning is Norfolk Southern.
Finger-Lakes Railway, a shortline, has trackage-rights to get from Geneva to an old Pennsylvania Railroad line to Watkins Glen. Watkins Glen has a salt-mine.
But I don’t think FLR has trackage-rights over this bridge.
Hiking the gorge made me sore, muscle soreness.
I’m 69, but I made it up without drama.
Coming back down I was stumbling from soreness.
On the way down we struck up a conversation with a quintessential Harley bruiser. Oily sweatshirt with ragged cut-off sleeves, hairy arms with tattoos, built like a fireplug. (“Heavy on the home-fries please;” steak for breakfast!)
He and his brother had ridden their Harleys up from home, Lock Haven, PA.
His brother looked fairly normal; bruiser was a James Dean wannabee.
He told us how riding his Harley melted stress, and how his mother-in-law was scared to death at first. That her daughter would be dating a guy just released from jail.
But bruiser claimed fatherhood had mellowed him. Well, his Harley was brutally LOUD. So was his brother’s.
They complained about the New York state helmet-law, yet dutifully put on their helmets. —Pennsylvania doesn’t require helmet-use.
Bruiser’s was a Nazi Wehrmacht helmet with a spike on top. Such a helmet is utterly useless in a crash. But it’s a helmet to the police.
Bruiser said something about attending the massive bike-rally in Sturgis, SD.
But he would ride to it instead of trailering his bike as friends suggested.
He also commented some bike-rally in Johnstown, PA, was “awesome,” 35,000 bikes.
Oh to be among friends. All bruisers and bruiser wannabees.
His sweatshirt advertised a Harley dealer in Gettysburg, PA, which is why my brother struck up a conversation.
He had just visited Gettysburg.
The next day would be Letchworth Park.
I felt better after a nap and nighttime sleep. But any time I started walking at Letchworth the soreness was back.
Thankfully seeing Letchworth is mostly driving. It’s hard to hike Letchworth; it’s too big.
Before Letchworth we decided to see Mt. Morris Dam.

Mt. Morris Dam. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

I had never been there, and we arrived about 10:40.
Signs said a free tour would begin at 11; down into the dam, etc.
We decided to do it.
Mt. Morris Dam is flood-control. There’s no dammed up lake behind it.
It protects downstream towns and farms and Rochester from flooding by the Genesee river (“jen-uh-SEE”). If drainage upstream becomes excessive, water accumulates behind the dam.
Mt. Morris Dam is at the north end of Letchworth gorge.
The dammed-up water accumulates in the gorge.
Right at the moment the gorge was empty. A contractor had trucks at the bottom removing tree-debris.
We hiked down to the dam on an access-road, and then out onto the top of the dam.
The road goes to a tall head-house. We went inside, then took a freight-elevator 195 feet down.
Our guide was a pretty young girl voided of all femininity by her frumpy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers uniform. I guess she was also a park-ranger.
Her uniform reminded me of our uniforms at Transit.
They looked terrible — hardly dashing.
Yet the floozies always seemed attracted to that uniform, as if it symbolized a stable income.
Would that it did!
You were always walking on eggshells, afraid you might get fired on some trumped-up charge.
I remember a driver getting fired even though a Granny slid her car into his parked bus, which he was not on. His bus was safely secured at the layover-point. But the fact the bus was his meant he’d had an accident, and management declared they would fire him if he was involved in any more accidents.
Um......
What that uniform symbolized is you had to wear it to drive bus.
If you didn’t you were “out-of-uniform;” and couldn’t drive.
I remember being called-on-the-carpet for wearing a matching sweater not from the uniform-vendor, who was obviously getting a kickback, and/or management was getting a kickback.
That uniform cost way more than it was worth, although we were getting a uniform allowance — which was usually not enough. (My first Transit uniform was purchased with my own money.)
The pants were ill-fitting, and the shirts were hot and sweaty.
We had to wear ties a ballistic passenger could use as a noose!
It was a honky tour. Not a single person of color or foreign ethnicity was among our group, which comprised about 30 — although there was a Harley greaser.
Many were children.
Inside the dam we navigated narrow concrete tunnels with overhead safety-lights. You could stand.
We were in the bottom tunnel, which accessed the gates.
There are water-tunnels beneath the dam to allow water out of the dam bottom.
A hydraulic system opens the gates to these tunnels with gigantic pistons.
The gates also have a cutting edge to cut through tree-debris. Not everything is stopped from getting in those tunnels.
Our guide did various cutesy tricks to entertain the kids. I pretty much kept to myself.
Honkies among us made sickening attempts at humor.
Back into the freight-elevator. Up two floors to a chamber in the gorge wall. An incredibly long staircase went up to a parapet above the dam, up on top of the gorge.
Until the access-road (the first access-road washed out), that long stairway was the only way down to the dam, and back up.
With that our dam-tour was finished. Back on the freight-elevator, back outside, and back up the access-road.
I was turned off by the honky behavior, but the tour was interesting.
My brother said he did the Hoover-Dam tour, but it was nowhere near as extensive or informative. Plus he had to wait in line, and pay.
This tour was free.
But Mt. Morris Dam isn’t Hoover Dam.
Next was Letchworth Park, but we had already spent time at that dam. We had to do short shrift.
So into the South Entrance we drove, after a long drive down from the dam, which is at the north end.
Under the famous railroad-bridge over the gorge.


That’s the railroad-bridge back there. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

That bridge is still active, but ancient.
I think it’s about 1875. It replaced a wooden trestle that burned.
The railroad is now Norfolk Southern, but it was originally Erie’s line to Buffalo. It was probably something else before that.
Norfolk Southern will replace the bridge — it’s part of NS’s line from Buffalo to New York City, the old Erie.
That bridge is so old and rickety the trains can’t exceed 10 mph. If a train went into emergency (sudden full train-brakes), it would probably take down the bridge.
Questions remain about leaving the old bridge standing. It makes an excellent walking-path, overlooking the Upper Falls.
I walked across it many times myself years ago, including as trains passed — it has a railing, and plenty of room.
But now I presume Norfolk Southern has it as “no trespassing.”
Letchworth is about 20-25 miles north of Houghton (“HO-tin;” not “how” or “who”), my college, so was a frequent hangout.
As a railfan I was drawn to that bridge, although back then it was Erie-Lackawanna.

Kinzua Viaduct before the tornado.

An inactive railroad-bridge called “Kinzua Viaduct (“KIN-zoo-uh”) in northwestern PA was left standing, but a tornado partially destroyed it. Kinzua was impressive. It was over 300 feet high, and long. It crossed Kinzua valley, and was supposedly the mightiest steel viaduct of all. (Pictured is bridge number-two; number-one was iron — two is steel. —Second-mightiest was the one over Letchworth.)
The waterfall is the Upper Falls. Walking the railroad-bridge overlooks the falls.


The Middle Falls. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

We then drove down to the “Middle Falls” after checking out a museum.
Letchworth Park was named after William Pryor Letchworth, who bequeathed his estate in the gorge to become a state park.
His mansion, which overlooked the Middle and Upper Falls, is now a restaurant.
The park has three waterfalls, Upper, Middle, and Lower.
It’s the Genesee River, which carved the gorge long ago.
The long, deep gorge is called “the Grand Canyon of the East,” although it seems to me another gorge in PA calls itself the same thing.
We then set out for the Lower Falls, but we were running out of time, and it was beginning to rain.
I don’t know if we actually saw the Lower Falls. We saw a waterfall, but it wasn’t much.
Our guide at the dam said the Lower Falls are flooded out when the dam is full — which is hardly ever.
We also were out of time. We had to leave.

• The “Genesee River” is a fairly large river that runs south-to-north across Western New York, runs through Rochester, including over falls, and empties into Lake Ontario.
• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability, but I recovered fairly well.