Travel. Hometown Tourist. USA.

My Quest to Find Lower Falls Cave in Rochester, NY

A place I didn’t know existed until last year

Rochester, New York, is known for a few things, most notably, garbage plates, Kodak, George Eastman, and this article’s feature: The Genesee River. There are three different waterfalls along the Genesee in Rochester; High, Middle, and Lower Falls.

During the pandemic, I explored so many new areas in my hometown, including hiking down to the base of Lower Falls, an oasis within the city.

Lower Falls

Over the summer, I was inspired by a photo on the @rochesterny Instagram account and wanted to find the location, going off only a few vague directions in the comment section. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was looking for, but I knew it was in the vicinity of Maplewood Park and Lower Falls.

Attempt #1

I started just searching “Maplewood Park” in my phone and hoping the trail down into the gorge would be relatively obvious. Unfortunately for my friend and me, Maplewood Park is quite long, and when you type in “Maplewood Park” on Apple Maps, it takes you to the northern end, which is not where we needed to be.

We spent about an hour exploring the Genesee trail, including the Riverway Trail Bridge that gives you a great view of the tree-lined river and Veterans Memorial Bridge. I meant to come back when the foliage was perfect, but I forgot, so I’ll have to add that to my fall 2021 to-do list.

The other location mentioned in the comment section was Lower Falls, which we realized was farther south than where my maps app had taken us. We set off down the riverway trail heading south, hoping to spot an unofficial trail leading downwards. We couldn’t find any trails, and the sides of the gorge were way too steep, so I checked my phone to see how much further we’d have to walk.

Much to our surprise, we still had another 20 minutes to walk. After that, we then had to think about the length of the hike down and walking back to my car. After driving down to Lower Falls and parking at the YMCA, we followed the paved path down towards Lower Falls, which I distinctly remember reeked of weed, and made our way to the viewing platform. Still no sign of a trail, so we walked a little farther to the right and spotted a potential trail. Jackpot! Or so we thought.

Instead of taking us down to the bottom where we could spot fishermen, the short trail took us past a sign warning extreme danger when lights are flashing, but no lights were to be found, so we just had to hope a flash flood didn’t happen and sweep us over the edge.

While we didn’t reach my photo location, we still found a pretty great view from the top of Lower Falls. As the sun began to set, we enjoyed the calming rushing of the water and the squawking of a few lone seagulls, the entire area all to ourselves.

We’d run out of time to find the trail leading the bottom of the gorge, heading home technically in defeat but happy about the spots we found along the way.

Attempt #2

I was honestly quite annoyed with myself that I couldn’t find the trail, so I went and did some searching on the internet since the comment section on Instagram was a bust. Almost instantly, I found the answer to my question of where to find the trail once I searched “hike to the bottom of Lower Falls”! Why hadn’t I just done a quick Google search earlier?!

It turns out that the unofficial trail leading into the gorge and to Lower Falls Cave, the location of the photo, was right across the street from the YMCA. I couldn’t believe how close we were to finding it!

We set off again about a week later, determined not to let the trail escape us again. Parking at the Maplewood Rose Garden, we found the official riverway trail entrance and began searching. It didn’t take us long to notice the suspicious gap in the metal railings and a sign warning anglers to keep their masks on and stay 6 feet apart while fishing. We’d finally found the trail!

After passing by a few homeless encampments, walking along a narrow cliff, and nearly sliding down the last portion, we made it to the rocky riverbank. Unfortunately, there was no nice path along the dirt of the river, leaving us to scramble across the rocks like mountain goats. For some reason, my friend chose to wear flip-flops despite me telling her I’d be wearing my hiking shoes, but she managed to make it pretty far along. I continued the last stretch to the cave alone with my backpack filled with my tripod, camera, water bottle, and of course, some snacks.

My first shot was of the three fishermen in front of the falls. I had bought a variable neutral density filter in preparation for waterfall photos like these in broad daylight and it worked great! I was able to set my tripod up evenly on a large rock and used my remote shutter to prevent shaking the camera.

The steady rushing of the water combined with the isolation of being far down in a gorge practically eliminated all the city noises from up above.

Now onto the main attraction: Lower Falls Cave!

The cave was dark and musty with a faint dripping sound farther back and was covered in graffiti. I couldn’t clearly see the end of it, leaving my paranoid self convinced that a crazed murderer or rabid animal would run out and attack me while I took my photos. This photo is a little overexposed, as I recall the cave being darker than this once you step out of the sunlight.

The cave’s original purpose was water management, but it doesn’t appear to have been used in a long time.

I set up my tripod and the self-timer function in record time, running out to the mouth of the cave to pose. I got out of there as fast as I could once I saw I had gotten at least a couple of solid options, appearing back in view to my friend waiting down below.

After a brutal uphill climb, we returned to the car, sweaty and tired but victorious at last.

Once I buy ice spikes that fit my boots, I want to make the trek down there in the winter after seeing these photos (at the bottom of the post) from the creator of the Explore Rochester Instagram page.

#hometowntourist

Check out my blog sarahssmorgasbord or my Medium profile for more travel stories!

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