Pennsylvania Waterfalls

Talk about waterfalls outside of New York state.

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spec
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Ben and I hit Ricketts Glen on Saturday 6-26-10. This place is freakin' incredible. We did the full loop, starting at the Rte 118 parking area. We saw all 21 falls along the Falls Trail as well as Adam's Falls on the other side of Rte 118. The Falls Trail loop is 7.2 miles long via the trail. Ben and I added some distance to that by walking in the creekbed for a fair portion of the journey. We also climbed a couple of falls multiples times, and explored a little bit around "Midway Crevasse" -- a large outcropping of rocks above Glen Leigh, the highest point along the Falls Trail. Midway Crevasse is interesting. Large boulders with interwoven cracks, notches, passages, wedges, and ledges adorn the hilltop, inviting exploration and investigation. Ben called this "a climber's playground."

We started out by checking out Adam's Falls, and watched a few daring souls jump from the gorge wall into the deep pool at the bottom. After that we headed out from the Rte 118 parking lot towards the glen and hiked past 3 falls up to Waters Meet, where the two branches of Kitchen Creek and their respective glens converge. We then went up through Ganoga Glen to the Lake Rose trailhead, passing the 94 ft Ganoga Falls and 9 others. From there we took the Highland Tail across the ridge between the upper glens, through the Midway Crevasse, and to the top of Glen Leigh. Coming down Glen Leigh, we followed the trail for the most part, passing the remaining 8 falls in the glens, back to Waters Meet. The hike back to the parking lot from there took us past the three falls we saw on the way up. The air temps were well into the 80's and the humidity was quite high, so of course we took a few well needed dunks under some of the falls to cool off.

The character of the glens themselves is much like those in the Finger Lakes - layers of soft shales and sandstones interspersed with layers of harder dolomites and siltstones. The biggest difference is the presence of red shales, siltstones, and sandstones in the rock strata, which gives the glens a slightly "rusty" look. The one thing that stuck out to both Ben and I was how deep the plunge pools are at most of the falls. Some of the smaller falls have much deeper pools than the larger falls!

Some of these falls are directly climbable, some are not. Spectacular views of all the falls are offered by the trails as they ascend and descend the gorge walls. Signs at the trailheads warn visitors of the dangers that these trails present, and advise the use of proper footwear. They mean it. The trails are fairly steep in some places, and the nature of their location can make them very slippery. There are also several long flights of stairs made from large rocks -- some of these rocks are slighly wobbly, and of course they also get slippery when they are wet. The signs also suggest that visitors be in good physical condition for these trails. This is also a good idea. Ben and I are both in fairly good shape, and we were absolutely exhausted after the hike. It taxed us pretty heavily, and we still had about two hours of driving to do. Needless to say we were zombies by the time we got home.

Was it worth it? Yer damn skippy it was. I want to go back, perhaps camp overnight, and take my time viewing the falls... spend more time exploring and photographing the falls, and spread it out over a couple of days. I was able to get some good shots, but as we were running out of daylight we didn't hang around too long. Nonetheless, this was a hell of a trip, and an accomplishment for us.

Hike Stats: (including Adam's Falls)
Total Distance : ~8 miles
Lowest Elevation : 1200 ft ASL (+/-10 ft)
Highest Elevation : 2200 ft ASL (+/-10 ft)
Elevation Delta/Deviation : +1000 ft (+/-10 ft)
No. of Falls Seen : 22
Combined Height of Falls Ascended* : 469 ft
Combined Height of Falls Descended* : 390 ft
Total Hike Time : 5.5 - 6hrs

(*) not counting multiple ascents/descents

On to the pics:

Adam's Falls
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Murray Reynolds Falls
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Ben climbing at Ganoga Falls
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Ben at Midway Crevasse
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Me chillin' at Shawnee Falls
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R.B. Ricketts Falls
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Great photos and TR Andy!
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Matt
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very nice
spec
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Thank you guys!

I definitely encourage people to visit this park. Some interesting tidbits I've learned about the place since my visit....

The Ricketts family originally owned most of the land that the park sits on today, starting with Elijah and his brother Clemuel purchasing 5,000 acres around Long Pond (now Ganoga Lake) in 1851. Eventually, over 80,000 acres were owned by the Ricketts family in what are now Sullivan, Luzerne, and Columbia counties, and included the as-yet-unknown glens. The glens and waterfalls were not discovered until 1865, 14 years after the original purchase, when two of the Ricketts' guests decided to hike down Kitchen Creek to do some fishing. Can you imagine their surprise?

Elijah's son, Robert Bruce Ricketts, was a colonel in the Civil War. He returned to the area when the war ended, and began purchasing the land from his father. He renamed Long Pond as Ganoga Lake, and named the falls after Native American tribes, family, and friends. Colonel Ricketts died in 1918, and his heirs sold 48,000 acres of land to the Pennsylvania Game Commission. This eventually became most of what is now a game management area west of the park. In 1942, R.B.'s heirs sold a 1,260 acre parcel surrounding the glens to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and Ricketts Glen State Park was opened in 1944. Through various land transactions with the family and nearby landowners, the park today is 13,050 acres in size. 10,000 of those acres originally belonged to the Ricketts family.

(summarized from various online sources, including Wikipedia and Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources)

I also noticed in the Wikipedia article that they list "Kitchen Creek [Falls]" and "Shingle Cabin Falls" as two of the park's 24 named falls. We saw Kitchen Creek Falls as well, but didn't count it because it wasn't one of the named falls. That brings our stats to 23 falls, adding 9 feet to the ascent and descent totals. I took some shots but they came out horrible. The falls is actually under Rte 118 and required crawling under the bridge to view it. It is directly above Adams Falls, and is not labeled on the park brochure maps. Nor is Shingle Cabin Falls, however Shingle Cabin Creek is. I can only assume that those falls are on that creek. There are several off trail tributaries that look like they may hold more falls based on topo maps. I think it'd be worth exploring those as well.

Ok, I'm done rambling.... ;)
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Matt
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wow...
Maybe when I finish with all the waterfalls in NYState....
PAFalls.com available?
spec
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Matt wrote:wow...
Maybe when I finish with all the waterfalls in NYState....
PAFalls.com available?
:)

I just checked, and yes, PAFalls.com is available. :)
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I was just at Ricketts Glen a week ago. I didn't do the whole park, I just hiked up the last section of the gorge, the one I usually skip (it only has 3 falls in it). Normally I don't get out to falls during July or August because they are mostly dried up in PA when the summer sets in, but there was a line of severe storms moving through last Sunday morning that dumped about 2 inches of rain. By the time I got there at 2 in the afternoon, the rain had moved out and surprisingly nice flow for summer was my reward for chancing it:

Harrison Wright Falls:
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Murray Reynolds Falls:
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Adams Falls:
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I have some shots of Sheldon Reynolds Falls but the water was an ugly murky brown, not transparent at all, at the base of the falls and I decided to pass on those shots haha
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