My last year in Rochester was a busy one. Between classes, assignments, job applications, and socializing, my friends and I found windows of time to go out and explore the region around us.
Simon Business School splits its semesters into halves, so Fall is split into Fall A and Fall B. At the end of October last year, we were fresh out of Fall A: all that knowledge of statistics, econ, and SQL fresh and slowly marinating in our brains. Now was Fall break, a few days of relaxation between Fall A and Fall B. I came across a message on our college Slack from the Outdoor Adventure Club (OAC) at Simon: A fall hike at Letchworth State Park. Waiting for any excuse to get out of the house after a grueling week of exams, I jumped on the opportunity to go.
Many took the bus that left at 9:30, some others drove. We arrived at the Middle Falls in a little less than 2 hours, the tallest waterfall in the state park. From the parking lot, we could see the flowing Genesee river. The river starts just at the northern border of Pennsylvania from which it travels northward all the way to Lake Ontario. My campus sits on the bank of this river in Rochester! Earlier in August of last year, my friends and I kayaked on a small stretch of The Genesee.
We met up at the parking lot next to Middle Falls. The park stretches over 3 falls: Upper, Middle, and Lower. The three falls are quite close to each other, and that day we'd hike from Middle Falls to Lower Falls.
Of course, I brought my camera. The scene was extremely high-contrast, and I can attest that my 8-year-old, elementary-school-going, Canon 70D was struggling with dynamic range, whereas the iPhone was spitting out better images right out of the camera. Thanks to the power of camera RAW, I was able to fix a lot of high contrast camera shots in post (you'll see some later down in the post).
After a quick recap of the plan from the OAC folks, we took in the view of the falls and started our hike. I snapped some quick photos of my friends before moving on.
We took to the trails then, down the falls from the Middle Falls region (I say down the fall, but we actually hiked north). I wouldn't call the hike a particularly difficult one by any stretch. Everything was easy and I was able to walk just fine with all the gear I was carrying, including the Nikon F3 which I had on me just for show, apparently. Because of the photography dry spell that had preceded these trips, I wasn't so sure of myself with film photos this time. This was one of those initial trips where I'd pack more cameras than I could carry comfortably. I'd learn soon that less is more and it helps to be selective. Not only did I have my digital single reflex camera, I also had a film camera and a tripod - on a hike! Thank God the hike wasn't difficult.
Shreela, one of the MBA students working with the OAC probably saw me lugging around all this gear and requested I take some photos of us. I'm glad I did, because they document the journey quite well!
You can see the slate on the walls of the gorges in this picture. A magnificent sight!
The Dragoons monument caught my eye here when I went down the trail. Later I found out that this was erected to honor the regiment of Civil War soldiers.
Down the trail, I took this photo near a spot called Inspiration Point- aptly named! Look at those curves. This is one of those photos that took a lot of editing to look good, because of the harsh contrast of early afternoon sun. Just a right turn away I saw a breathtaking view of Middle Falls and the Genesee Arch Bridge.
A view of the Middle Falls from the trail. The river falls a total of 180m (600 feet) as it passes through the area of the state park over 3 falls.
I snapped some cliche photos, like this one of coin operated binoculars. Sometimes it's just nice to have a subject.
On the walk, I met up with many of my friends and we all enjoyed our first fall here in the US.
Later, I decided to walk on. I really wanted to keep taking some more photos.
Further down the trail, I saw some smaller falls. This time, I decided to set up my camera and take a longer exposure of flowing water.
To properly expose this photo, I had to close the lens aperture down to f/22 and lower my ISO to 100. Even that wasn't enough with a slow shutter speed of 0.6s. What I needed in the moment was an ND filter, which is a piece of glass you put in front of your lens that acts like a pair of sunglasses. Maybe I took that literally, and put my sunglasses against the lens.
As I climbed back to the Lower Falls playground, I had already become quite hungry.
OAC had us sorted, and we'd grill some burgers. Courtney from OAC guided us to the grills and benches where we set up our lunch. The vegetarians rejoiced at the sight of vegan burger patties.
The burgers were my favorite kind - make your own! I put chips, cheese, and ketchup in mine.
Food coma hit us quick after lunch, and we decided to end our hike there. The bus dropped us to campus later. I slowly walked back to Goler House, excited to edit the photos. I'd return to Letchworth Park around a year later, but that's for a different post!
Absolutely adore how cozy this blog feels 🦋🦋
Honestly my guy, this is a good read! Love the photos and the warm vibe it gives off. Definitely looking forward to seeing more of your journey :)