“TRAVEL IN LOCAL SPACES” “Rexford Falls, New York”

by Jessica Kuzmier

     Waterfalls abound in upstate New York, even though most people outside of the state are mainly familiar with Niagara Falls on the westernmost end. But waterfalls can be found throughout the state; rivers and mountains go together well enough that this would seem a pretty harmonious relationship. You can find them on trails, state parks, and on private property. You'll probably not get the opportunity to see all of them, but it seems logical enough to meet some of them if you're spending any time in the area. That is, if the natural landscape is what you believe defines a place.

     I came across a guide to waterfalls in central and western New York. I've forgotten the name of the manual, but it lists a whole slew of falls. I've used it previously on trips to falls such as Chittenango in Madison County. Autumn is probably the second best time to go see the falls in northern climes, owing to the fact that you might have the privilege to run into a splash of colors, depending on how the foliage decides to grace the landscape. Early spring, after the snow melts, seem like the best time, because the rush of the falls is that much stronger, and its force is that much more mesmerizing.

     I traveled to a couple of regional falls in the early fall; a little too early to experience peak foliage, but the weather was mild, and it seemed like a really neat excursion to go on. The plan was to go to two falls: Button Falls, located in Madison County, rated at forty feet high, and Rexford Falls, located in Chenango County and calculated at seventy-five feet in height.



     The plan was to go to Button Falls first, get something to eat, and then go to Rexford Falls in the afternoon. We headed north on NY 8 towards Button Falls. The drive started out fine, until we got stuck behind a wide load that was carting a double wide trailer in the back. Normally, the etiquette for these things is for the slow vehicle to pull over, but there wasn't much of a shoulder, so we got the tour bus view of the region. Houses with wide tracks of property were interspersed with fields of corn and hay. Most people around here probably weren't farmers, but the vastness of the fields compared to the house tracts would give an outsider the impression that this was entirely a farming community. Eventually, a good sized shoulder appeared on the right side of the road, and the trailer with the double wide pulled over and let the train of cars pass, of which we were the fourth. By the time that happened, the line of cars had gone so far back that I couldn't see the end of it. Who says there isn't traffic in upstate New York?

     Unencumbered by slow moving vehicles, we resumed our cruising at fifty-five miles per hour until we reached the designated turnoff for Button Falls. This fall was on a local road, so I wasn't exactly sure what kind of parking arrangement the place had. Maybe there was one of those pull-offs that you sometimes see on winding roads, especially near the rivers. Sometimes people used it to look at maps, other times just to eat their lunch on break. Maybe we would have that kind of luck here as well.

     As it turned out, we didn't. Our directions guided us to drive on a fairly narrow wooded road with many twists and turns. We couldn't find any pull over place at all, nor, with all the forestry, could we really make out any falls. We finally caught a glimmer of something shining like water through the woods, but there wasn't even a shoulder to drive on, let alone a parking space. Plus, the shimmer was right before a sharp bend with poor visibility, rendering the idea of parking our vehicle on the road moderately suicidal.



     After driving around in circles a couple of times and not seeing anything else that resembled falls, we surmised that the obscure glimmer we saw must have been Button Falls. Given the parking prospect, and the reality that the falls looked like it passed through someone's private back yard, we decided to trash the Button Falls plan. As we headed south on NY 8 to our next destination, we passed by Hunt's Pond State Park, a place we'd been to, but not terribly recently. We almost went there again to make up for the Button Falls, but decided just to move onwards to Rexford. Besides, we'd already been to Hunt's Pond.

     Rexford Falls is located in Sherburne, New York. The water that feeds it is Chenango River, which eventually dumps into the Susquehanna River further south. You get to the falls from NY 8 by traveling west on NY 80 until you reach Rexford Falls Road. There even is a parking area for you, meaning that compared to Button Falls, Rexford Falls is a bona fide park. It was a quiet road, nestled in a forest like area, and there was no one else there when we first got there. You could hear the rush of the falls through the trees even as you parked.

     Rexford Falls, as well as Chenango River, cut through a deep gorge of rock. You walked from the parking area through the trees until you came upon a creaky bridge that crossed the river. To view the falls, you had to peer over the bridge's edge, which had the effect of peering off the edge of reality. There was a revolving gate in the beginning of the bridge, which seemed more like a quaint additive than anything useful. Crossing over the bridge led you to a grassy knoll that brought you back to NY80.



     Standing on the bridge, you could look straight into the distance, if the effect of looking down at the rhythmic water made you dizzy; only the electric lines threw off the illusion of miles of trees going on forever without obstruction. The water was part dancer and part sculptor; as it splashed on the rocks, ir created a unique dance, and the patterns it etched, even for a moment on the stones, gave the impression of God imagining designs that He would create upon the rocks when the final idea struck His fancy. The gorge acted as a sundial as the shadows changed across the rocks. Shortly after high noon, we left the bridge, and went to see if we could access the falls more directly from another avenue.

     There was a path that went in either direction once you came back through the revolving gate. One way, to the left, seemed more parallel to the falls, but was obstructed with barbed wire. The way to the right seemed less direct, but there was no fence. We took that way first, only to wind up on an overlook that gave a view of the road we came on. That certainly explained the lack of fencing; there was no danger of anyone hopping over the falls in a barrel here.

     We backtracked the other way, passing the bridge again, admiring the handiwork of a graffiti artist on the bridge's foundation as we passed underneath. We walked alongside the river, with the barbed wire constantly warning us not to stray too far. The path seemed so lush with fern and other greenery that it seemed semi-tropical in the early autumn sun. The rush of the river became quieter as we moved further away from the falls. When we reached the end of the path, much to our surprise, we saw someone standing in the river, scooping down into the water. If this were Alaska, I would say he was panning for gold, but seeing that this was upstate New York, I wasn't sure what he was doing. I wasn't even sure how the guy got there.



     We retraced our steps back to our vehicle. Another car was parked there briefly, and then its occupants drove away. After getting another look at the falls on the bridge, we decided to leave also. As we drove back on Rexford Falls Road towards the state highway, we saw a car parked along the side of the road in the approximate area where we saw the guy standing in the river. Obviously, one could access the river in that oblique way. But we'd already seen what we had came for, and decided to leave that adventure for another time in the future.