Chapter 12 - Tributuaries
Discovery: Canajoharie Gorge - Much More Than Meets the Eye
April 16, 2002 80 degrees, Sunny
More than a 10 thousand years ago a glacial river cut through shale and dolostone to create a 3-mile gorge on the south side of the Mohawk River a few miles west of The Noses. During the process a large, circular pothole was ground into solid rock near the lower end of the gorge. The early inhabitants of the Mohawk Valley called this pothole Canajoharie, "the pot that cleans itself." Over the years the name was also applied to the Upper Mohawk Castle, a governmental "district" on the south side of the river between Little Falls and The Noses, and eventually to the creek, village, gorge and falls that now bear the name.
I had visited the lower end of Canajoharie
Gorge a number of times to see and photograph the "pot that cleans itself."
I had read about the falls further upstream but despite a couple half-hearted
attempts, never saw it. This time would be different. We were committed.
Denny had never seen the pothole, so we parked the
Jeep at the parking area on the east side of the creek at the end of Floral
Street. From there we followed the trail to the lower end of the gorge.
Someone had already staked a claim to the sun-baked ledge next to the pothole
with a pile of clothing, sneakers and towels. Hard to believe it was mid
April.
After a quick walk up to the old concrete dam, we
decided to return to the Jeep to get our hip boots. Back at the parking
area we saw two men repairing a large greenhouse, so we stopped to ask
the best way to view the falls. They suggested driving south out of the
village until we saw a water tower. From there we would find a trail leading
to a viewing platform. Fifteen minutes later we were standing on the platform
looking down at the Falls. From that vantagepoint we could see there was
plenty of room to walk along the bottom of the gorge. Viewing the falls
from the edge of the gorge also answered another question. Canajoharie
Falls was in the creek and was not the falls created by a small trib that
a topo map indicated dropped into the gorge further downstream.
by a tributary cascading down the side of the gorge.
As I said we were committed, so we went
back to the lower end of the gorge, pulled on hip boots and headed upstream
at 11:15 a.m. The only tricky crossing was above the concrete dam where
the creek ran fast along a rock ledge on the east side of the gorge. If
we slipped and fell, the current would take us into the swirling waters
above the dam. Fortunately, it was not as deep or as fast as it looked
and we crossed without incident.
The
gorge was spectacular. Sculptured walls of shale glowed white to dark grey
in the midday sun. Here and there cedars clung to perpendicular rock. At
the bottom of the gorge, where sediment had collected over the years, hemlock,
maple, birch, beech and an occasional sycamore grew streamside. Bright
yellow Coltsfoot grew among the rocks.
The highlight of this discovery trip was the small
tributary cascading some 100 feet down the side of the gorge. In the summer
this waterfalls would be a mere trickle, but during this high water periods
it was nothing but spectacular.
We were standing just downstream from Canajoharie
Falls at noon. It was much more impressive from the bottom than from the
viewing platform, but not nearly as beautiful as the gorge-side falls further
downstream.
When we returned to the crossing above the dam,
a woman and four children were wading across. Denny waded out to the middle
of the creek, downstream from where they were crossing, to catch anyone
who got caught in the current. No one did.
Canajoharie Gorge was spectacular.
As we drove from the parking area, we stopped to
chat with Fred and Fritz Traudt, father and son owners of Traudt Florists.
Fred was 95 years old. He told us he used to have a perfectly round ---
cannonball-size rock --- from the bottom of the pothole but foolishly gave
it away.
Left, Canajoharie Falls from the viewing platform. Right, from the
bottom of the gorge.
Fish? They weren't
interested in spinners and spoons. Fritz told us the gorge is definitely
not a hotspot, although occasionally someone catches a big brown trout
on live bait.
Fred also told us there was a unique rock in the
creek at the upper end of the gorge. We told him we would be sure to look
for it when we explored the gorge from Wintergreen Park on a future discovery
trip.
Follow the path of this discovery trip by clicking on Mohawk Valley Maps: by Maptech.
Type Canajoharie select New York, press GO!
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