MOHAWK - Discovering the Valley of the Crystals Copyright 2002
Little Falls To Fink Basin
Discovery: High Road to Trash - Low Road to Treasure
March, 5, 2002 20 degrees, Sunny
Fink Basin is a small community on the south side of the Mohawk River,
about a mile and a half east of Little Falls. Basins were "ponds"
along the 1825 Erie Canal where boaters could turn around, unload or just
stop to rest. At that time, the road from Little Falls to Finck's (original
spelling) Basin ran high on the side of Fall Hill, well away from the muck
and mire of the valley below. Today this highroad is an ATV trail in the
summer and snowmobile trail in the winter.
From
1880 to the 1970s a railroad ran past Finck's Basin, along the bottom of
Fall Hill and into Little Falls. It paralleled the Old Erie Canal and later
the Barge Canal. Today this low road is the path of a paved hike and bike
trail that is used by both summer and winter travelers.
Our plan was to hike the highroad west from Fink
Basin to Little Falls and then return on the low road. But, there were
so many No Parking signs at the Fink Basin end of the highroad (to discourage
snowmobilers and such from parking vehicles and trailers near residences)
that we drove to Little Falls and started from the west end.
from the overlook on Danube St.
At 10:15 a.m. we parked at the pull-off and overlook
at the end of Danube St. After taking a few photographs from this vantage
point, we hiked up the road that Dale Janes and I had taken on an earlier
outing. This time, however, we didn't take a right turn to the Rollaway.
As we walked along this woodland trail, Ron noted
rows of piled rocks, paralleling but well above the road. They looked like
remnants of stone fencerows found along the edge of farmfields. But this
steep-sided hill, hardly seemed the place for farmfields. Perhaps they
marked property lines or the edge of an earlier road.
There was considerable evidence of logging
in this hardwood forest, including stumps, tops and occasional piles of
firewood. As is the case all along the side of Fall Hill, rock outcrops
jutted from the forest floor. Most of them were relatively small, but about
a mile down the road, trees grew sparingly on a peninsula of solid rock
that slanted downward. Here we discovered the charred logs of a bonfire,
and a trail leading down the rocky slope. Although its destination was
a mystery, we opted not to follow it.
Disappointment greeted us in the form of a large
dump near the end of the highroad. Woodland dumps are not unusual, and
are sometimes interesting, but in this pile of car parts, bicycles, tires
and other trash there were dozens of plastic bags filled with trash.
J
ust
east of the dump was a fork in the road. We took the uphill fork. It led
to what we thought was a summer camp built around an old bus. When we saw
smoke coming from the chimney and realized the bus was occupied, we returned
to the fork and took the other road. As we walked down the road, several
dogs from the bus camp barked in chorus and came down to greet us. Fortunately,
they were friendly and didn't follow us as we walked into Fink Basin .
. . and headed for the low road back to Little Falls.
bed is closed to motor vehicle traffic.
We were greeted at the entrance to this road with
a large DO NOT ENTER sign, which we surmised was intended to keep motor
vehicles off this paved bike trail. At this east end, the trail starts
in a deep cut through solid rock, very similar to the cut at the west end.
For most of its length the construction of the railroad around Fall Hill
displaced large outcrops of bedrock, creating cuts, cliffs and rock walls.
At
12:30 we discovered a series of concrete pillars on the south side of the
trail. Three rows, 20 pillars in each row, supported a roof that was covered
with brush and trees. I guessed the pillars be 20-25 feet high, and measured
them to be 34"X 25" across. The distance between rows and the length
of the structure indicated that railroad cars had once sat side by side
in this structure. The underside of the roof revealed a series of evenly
spaced "trap door" holes.
Behind this railroad siding structure, we discovered
the remnants of a cluster of concrete, brick and stone buildings that were
overgrown with honeysuckle and second growth trees. A large concrete "basement",
partially filled with constantly flowing spring water, looked like a giant
cistern. Behind the buildings was an area of excavation that looked much
like a large pond without water in it.
Although fascinating, the buildings behind the pillars
created more confusion than illumination. While I was taking photographs
of the structures, Ron discovered their long ago function. He noted the
abundance of small chunks of stone at the base of the pillars and on the
roof. The railroad cars that once parked between these pillars were loaded
with crushed stone.
With that revelation in mind, I could picture dolostone being blasted from the side of the hill (as it still is in quarries in the Mohawk Valley), run through a stone crusher, conveyed to the top of the pillared structure and dumped i
nto
railroad cars, to be transported to road construction sites all over upstate
New York. I could also picture workers and visitors picking up some of
those clear quartz crystals that are so often found in deposits of dolostone
. . . and for thousands of years revered as treasure.
We continued down the trail noting the view of Moss Island and the Canal on the right and the cliffs on the left. A huge chunk of dolostone that had broken loose from one of the cliffs and slid to the bottom looked like the bow of a ship.
This pillared structure is a relic of
railroad history in the Mohawk Valley. .
We were back at the Jeep at 1:30, having made a 3-mile
round trip where we discovered, woods, trash, treasure, history and mystery.
A clue to the mystery is the name of the highroad at Fink Basin. For many
years it was called Lover's Leap Road.
For more information about the history of Little Falls: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nyherkim/littlefalls.html
Follow the path of this discovery trip by clicking on Mohawk Valley Maps: by Maptech.
Type Little Falls, select New York, press GO!
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