Chittenango Falls State Park — Attraction in Town of Cazenovia

One of the most beautiful places I have visited.

When a new town is planned, it is more important to develop public parks and sports facilities than shopping centres for people to spend their free time in. To what extent do agree or disagree?

It is considered that when designing and building a new town, it is more crucial to construct public parks and sports facilities instead of shopping malls for people to spend their leisure time. From my perspective, I agree that providing more public and sports facilities is more imperative than building shopping centres.

First, Public parks and sports facilities cater to a wide range of recreational pursuit and they are flatforms for promoting a healthy lifestyle. With an open atmosphere and natural areas, public parks provide residents with opportunities to connect with nature. Furthermore, these places are habitats of wildlife flora and fauna, providing incentives for people to observe and take photographies. Additionally, since the world’s population is increasingly urbanized, today people especially young people live a sedentary lifestyle and this lead to various health problems such as obesity or high blood pressure. Hence, developing sports facilities is an essential investment as it encourages citizens to establish an active lifestyle.

Second, building shopping malls are harmful to the environment as it results in deforestation. Admittedly, shopping malls are usually constructed on wildlife species’ habitats, they also occupied large areas using for buildings and car parks instead of trees or grass. Recent research concluded that more than 76% per cent of the forest in Quang Tri is destructed to give spaces for new shopping malls. Furthermore, shopping centres are virtually located far from the town centre. This synonymous with people have to travel by cars to reach these places, thus, leading to an increased amount of greenhouse emissions in the atmosphere.

In conclusion, I believe that instead of building shopping centres, people should develop public parks and sports facilities as they are of tremendous benefit for...

I went to this park today and I have to say, it was way more than I ever could have hoped! After paying the (very reasonable) $5 per car entry fee and finding a place to park, which was easy seeing as it was 10 am on a Tuesday, I started down the Gorge Trail. (Side note: the bathrooms here are very clean and look newly constructed.) A word of warning: the trails are quite slippery, especially after rain, so I would strongly suggest wearing hiking boots or some type of grippy footwear. There are 5 main viewing points: 2 on either side of the top of the waterfall, 2 on either side about halfway down the waterfall and a footbridge at the base of the waterfall. All of them offer gorgeous views of the waterfall, but in my opinion the view from the footbridge outpaces all the others. The hike itself isn’t very difficult but it might offer some challenges for beginners due to how steep it is. I slipped a couple times on the way down but thankfully didn’t hurt myself. It might be difficult to tell from some of the pictures but the falls themselves are huge! I mean I know it says that they’re 167 feet tall but you don’t really realize how tall that actually is until you are staring it in the eye! The sheer amount of vegetation that is to be growing out of the rocks was also shocking to me! Like everywhere you look, there is some kind of plant that seems to be completely at home in a place you never would have thought possible! At first glance, I honestly thought I was in the Amazon rainforest, not central New York! In conclusion, I would very strongly...

Intro: I went to this park just because I saw the word "gorge" in the description for the park on an online review, lol. I was not disappointed.

Entrance: Clearly marked, easy to get to. It was easy to enter and exit.

Parking: Great parking, right at the entrance. Plenty of space and well maintained, has the restroom building right on the edge of it. Also has the map and bulletin board next to it as well.

Facilities: Restrooms are big, spacious, and well maintained for an outdoor facility. No complaints, at least for the men's bathrooms. The upper park area is very well taken care of, I was there bright and early, and the groundskeepers were already there. I did not see any trash or anything out of place. Plenty of benches, grills and even a large covered area.

Trails and other Features: The main feature, the waterfall, was awesome. Worth every minute driving from Utica. What was also really nice was the Gorge Trail. Now, there are warnings about the difficulty of the trail, but really, it's only the east side of the river that actually rough. The west side, directly below the main park area, is well designed, with steps, rails and manageable incline for MOST of it. Once you get the bottom, I recommend only crossing the bridge and going up the other side if you want a more "natural" climb, lol. It's very rough.

Final Word: Worth the trip, while it only really has one trail, it's a great exercise with awesome views. Go here if you love hiking and waterfalls, and having fun is a...