| County: |
Lewis |
| Town: |
Greig |
| USGS Map: |
Brantingham |
| Waterway: |
Otter Creek |
| Latitude: |
N 43.72126o |
| Longitude: |
W 75.26553o
|
| Drop: |
~10' |
|
Locating Shingle Mills Falls turned out to be quite an
adventure. The information we had came from a brochure found
on-line promoting Lewis County waterfalls and published by a Lewis
County organization. We were told that the trailhead was
"approximately four miles" down a road and then you had
to hike about a mile to the falls. In fact, the trailhead
was only about 2.5 miles in and we walked a little over 100 yards! Here
is what you really need to do. From New York State Highway
12, roughly half way between the communities of Glenfield and
Lyons Falls, you will find the Burdicks Crossing Road.
Follow this east. It will end at a "T" where you
should turn left. The second right will be the Brantingham
Road. Follow this until you come to the Partridgeville Road
on the left. About 1.6 miles up this road, you will actually
take a left to stay on the Partridgeville Road. One-half
mile from this corner, the pavement will end. In another 0.4
miles, you will find a small parking area on your left. You
now have a choice to make. From this point, the falls are
less than 1/2 mile, so it is not a bad hike. However, the
"road" is labeled as a motor vehicle trail. Since
it was raining when we were there, and we thought we had a mile to
walk (in retrospect, maybe they meant one mile round-trip but they
didn't say that), we opted to drive. It's not a great road,
but it is far from the worst we've found on our waterfall
adventures! A little over 0.1 mile in, you will come to a
fork with a sign indicating that the right is the Shingle Mills
Spur. In another 0.2 mile, there is a parking area and the
end of the line as far as motor vehicles are concerned. The
falls are about 350 feet down the trail. At about ten feet in
height, Shingle Mills Falls is quite a bit wider than it is
tall. It is still a very nice set of falls in a fairly
remote setting. Not far at all inside the Adirondack State
Forest, our information tells us that there are several additional
falls above and below this point. Since it was raining, we
didn't take the time to explore. The Otter Creek flows into the Black River just a few miles
downstream from this location. The Black
empties into Lake Ontario in the Jefferson County community of
Dexter.
|
