page_title: Letchworth State Park
section_title: Waterfalls and geology
hierarchical_section_title: Letchworth State Park / Features and activities / Waterfalls and geology
caption_attribution_description: English: Lower Falls,stone footbridge and the gorge.
context_page_description: Letchworth State Park is a 14,427-acre New York State Park located in Livingston County and Wyoming County in the northwestern part of the State of New York. The park is roughly 17 miles long, following the course of the Genesee River as it flows north through a deep gorge and over several large waterfalls. It is located 35 miles southwest of Rochester and 60 miles southeast of Buffalo, and spans portions of the Livingston County towns of Leicester, Mount Morris, and Portage, as well as the Wyoming County towns of Castile and Genesee Falls.
  In 1859, industrialist William Pryor Letchworth began purchasing land near the Middle Falls, and started construction of his Glen Iris Estate. In 1906 he bequeathed the 1,000-acre estate to New York, which soon after became the core of the newly created Letchworth State Park. The park prominently features three large waterfalls – the Upper, Middle, and Lower Falls – on the Genesee River, which flows within a deep gorge that winds through the park. The rock walls of the gorge, which rise up to 550 feet in places, prompted the area's reputation as the "Grand Canyon of the East".
context_section_description: Within the park, there are three large waterfalls on the Genesee River and as many as 50 waterfalls found on tributaries that flow into it; the deep gorge formed by the river, with rock walls rising up to 550 feet (170 m) in places and which narrow to 400 feet (120 m) across above the middle of the three falls, prompted the area's reputation as the "Grand Canyon of the East". The three major waterfalls — called the Upper, Middle, and Lower Falls — are located in Portage Canyon, the southern section of the park. The only trail bridging the Genesee River in the park crosses a stone bridge just below the Lower Falls. The Middle Falls is the highest, and the Upper Falls has an active railroad trestle crossing immediately above it.
  The park also contains Inspiration Falls, a ribbon waterfall that is located on a tributary creek a short distance east of the Inspiration Point Overlook, 0.4 miles (640 m) west of the park visitor center.  It has a total drop of 350 feet (110 m). While impressive in its height, it is seasonal and often appears as only a water stain on the cliff.  The falls faces to the south-southwest and has a crest that is one foot (300 mm) wide.
  The bedrock exposed in the gorge is Devonian in age, mostly shales, with some layers of limestone and sandstone. The rock was laid down in an ancient inland sea, and it holds many marine fossils. The landform of the section of the Genesee River valley represented by the park is geologically very young, caused by a diversion of the river from the old valley by the last continental glacier, which forced the river to cut a new section of valley.
caption: Lower Falls and stone footbridge at Letchworth State Park
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2011:08:30 01:31:12", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "21493", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3228", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2841"}