Maple Shade (Mill Creek) Falls

A place to discuss waterfalls. Including the parks that house them and the hikes to get to them.

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Jeduthan
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I stopped at these falls on my bike ride across Saratoga county. To find the falls, start from Rte 9P on the east side of Saratoga Lake. Turn away from the lake on Brown Road, going uphill to the intersection with Putnam. If you drive past four abandoned railroad trestles then you've gone too far. From Brown Road, you can only see the base of the falls. From Putnam you can see most of the falls. In summer, I suspect undergrowth would block the view from Putnam.

What I found unusual about these falls was the huge concrete structure above the falls. It looked nothing like a traditional dam, or rather, it looked to me like half a traditional dam. Almost as if they started building it and quit. But then again, a dam wouldn't have a culvert through it to intentionally let the stream through either...

I knocked at two of the nearby houses to determine if they were the property owners, but no one answered. The property between the falls and Putnam Road was not posted.

To be honest, I'm not sure exactly where one might park a car as I wasn't thinking about that at the time. You might be able to park on Brown Road and walk up Putnam.

These are the trestles on Brown Road. The falls are behind and below the trestles.
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Jeduthan
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You have to look past the trees, but this is the concrete structure above the falls and the one where the stream flows through it. You can see the triangular shape, but also how it simply stops. If it were intended to be a dam the water would simply flow around the end. I found it rather curious.
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Jeduthan
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The falls, and the back of the concrete structure in the previous picture. The graffiti takes away somewhat from the falls. I thought about cropping that out, but then again it's what you will see if you choose to visit. I think the culvert may curve on its way through the concrete because I couldn't see daylight peeking through from the opposite side.
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Matt
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very very interesting. I looked at old map from 1886 and saw names plotted along that area, including a saw mill and grist mill. It looks like the grist mill was close to where the falls is. The name "Rogers" is prevalent on the map from that time.

The structures you see are from what I think are the remnants of the Stillwater Mechanicville Railroad, which I think at one time connected to a Boston/Maine line. It probably extended down the steep grade to the lake just to service these mills/ and or a resort if there was one along the lake.


Thanks for posting this.. I have to catch up on these and get researching again.
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