» grand canyon of the east
Letchworth is known as the "Grand Canyon of the East" which is probably great for marketing the park, but it's not at all like the Grand Canyon in Arizona if that's what you were thinking. It is, however, a "Grand" canyon in the sense that it is big (550 feet deep), and I'm not too sure of any other significant canyons out east, so it's not really false advertising. Still, I think it would have been better if they could have busted out a thesaurus and come up with something besides the already taken "Grand Canyon", such as "Great Canyon" or "Stupendous Canyon". Maybe I'm nitpicking too much though, the two canyons might be more similar in another million years. In any case, just don't go there expecting to see something like the real Grand Canyon, it's not as wide, or deep, it has lots of trees, and lots of waterfalls. It also has lots of nice cabins, trails, an inn, rafting opportunities, and I'm sure the views are even more amazing in the fall. There were a few significant waterfalls that fed into the canyon but they were hard to photograph from above, like Wolf Creek Falls, and thus are not shown below.

Great Bend. Along the shore at the bottom of this photo you can (barely) see some river rafters pausing for a swim.

Lower Falls (view a video of the falls).

Rainbow at Middle Falls.

Panoramic of Great Bend.

The Middle Falls, dropping 107 feet.

Middle Falls detail.

Leaves.

Middle Falls.

Great Bend again (also called Big Bend).

Waterfalls.

Bridge near Upper Falls.

Stringy waterfall.

The river far below.

Left: Rainbow at Upper Falls (Photo by Megan). Right: Side fall near Middle Falls.

Lower, Middle, and Upper Falls.

Middle Falls.

Us and a waterfall.

Left: A small section of Wolf Creek Falls. Right: Logs that took a ride over Middle Falls and got deposited on shore.

Left: Rafters and Kayakers. Right: North of Great Bend.

Left: Near Upper Falls. Right: Lower Falls.

Side waterfall near Middle Falls.

» on the road
I think it's a longer drive home to Ann Arbor via the US rather than Canada but you avoid the tedious border crossings and the drive is actually more interesting. It was all green trees, hills, and historic small towns in New York and Pennsylvania. Then we watched a beautiful sunset over Lake Erie from the freeway starting in Erie, Pennsylvania and lasting for many miles. I believe it took us about 7 hours to get home, including stops.

Left: Lake Erie near Buffalo, New York. Right: Downtown Warsaw, New York.

 

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