Along Six Mile Creek in Ithaca - June 2006
This weekend was extremely rainy, but we gave up on the sun coming out
and hoped it would remain just cloudy. We returned to Six Mile Creek
near Ithaca, but this time walking upstream.
The stream itself was swollen with rain water. We had to keep to the higher
trails because the ones along the stream bank were under water.
The nice thing about the rain is that it makes the lesser waterfalls that
dry up in summer much easier to find. Here was a pretty one that was
across the river and thus harder to see:
Here is a much more substantial one:
The stream is dammed up as part of Ithaca's water supply. The trail
follows a series of 100-year old giant pipes. We don't think
they are still in use, as in one place a big section has been washed out.
Having the pipes to follow was a good thing though, as they tended not to
have the huge sudden changes in elevation like you normally get on a gorge
trail.
Here you can see the pipe running straight into the middle set of dams:
Note that Submerged Rocks and Dangerous Swimming are Illegal here:
You can't go any further along this route, so we backtracked up and above:
A while later looking back you can see the resevoir formed by the dam:
Along the way there were a few smaller waterfalls you had to carefully cross:
Finally we got to our destination, Potter's Falls. There was a large
amount of water going over it (for obvious reasons):
We then backtracked back to our car. We'll have to return sometime when
it's not so wet, but also the poor weather meant we had the trails to ourself.
Back to June 2006 Adventures