Letchworth State Park Upper Falls — Attraction in Town of Portage

Incredible park and waterfalls. This park is about a 4.5 hour drive from Pittsburgh so I drove and stayed overnight in Hornell to have an under hour drive there the next morning. I entered the Portageville entrance at just after 8 am. Note that there is a charge of $10 per car at the entrance. However, it is time dependent. As of this post, their website states from 5/11 to 10/20 9am til 5pm the charge is $10. When I got there a little after 8am there was a sign indicating no charge. Lucky me! Also lucky that my goal was to park in the first parking lot as it is closest to The Falls Trail (marked #1 on map and with pink blazes) and I was the only car in the lot upon arrival. The trail starts from this lot and I parked right next to the sign for the trailhead. The map will indicated this is a 7 mile one-way trail. True, but to see the main star attractions of Upper Falls, Middle Falls, and Lower Falls, it takes far less mileage. I ended up hiking from 8:20 til noon round-trip, saw the thee falls and Inspiration Point, took lots of photos, ate my packed lunch and had icecream at the concession building on my way back near the beginning. There are at least 2 restrooms with flushing toilets and running water, just not in the parking lot but within a 10 minute walk along the way. Look over to your left in the grassy portions of the park. Note that, at least with the first restroom, the water fountain was not operable. The walk is mostly shaded. There are many steps and one major hill walking back up from seeing a waterfall. All doable but definitely need mobility. You most certainly want to time the Middle Waterfall with sunshine in order to take full advantage of the Rainbow caused by the light off the mist of its water. I captured a beautiful photo early in the morning but on the way back puffy clouds obscured the sun, and, alas, no rainbow. I went on a Friday morning and there were not many...

The Upper Falls of the Genesee River was one of three major waterfalls on the Genesee River in Letchworth State Park. This waterfall was actually just a short distance upstream of the Middle Falls. The bridge was said to have originally opened in 1852 as the highest wooden railroad bridge at the time at 234ft above the Upper Falls of the Genesee River while spanning 850ft across the gorge. Of course the current bridge that we saw was made of iron as the original wooden one was said to have burned down in 1875 under “suspicious circumstances.” This rebuilt railroad bridge was definitely active and still in use as it was said to link Buffalo and Hornell courtesy of the Erie Railroad Company. The walk from the car park that served both the Upper and Middle Falls was merely a couple of minutes uphill along a concrete path flanked by a lawn on one side and a concrete barricade on the other. There was a coin-op binocular here to perhaps get a closer look at the bridge as well as some possible bird life that might...

Out of the three falls, lower falls is the most beautiful with a bridge and good steps to climb down.

Upper falls is good but nothing special other than the bridge that makes it look different. Moreover, there is a steel stairs if you hike from middle falls. There is a parking lot if you don’t want to hike the steps.

Lower falls is the most beautiful one with some hikes, River on the bridge and sliding water from the rocks. The steps were muddy due to rains. So, be prepared for it.

If you love hiking, you can park your car at Inspiration point and hike to middle falls and upper falls. It took about 1.5 hours for me - both ways.

And then drive to lower falls to park and hike down to the falls. Highly recommended if you are...