Falls of the Rensselaer Technology Park

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

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George
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An 8-foot plunge with nice cascades above and below the falls, this is reached by a 20-minute walk on lands owned by RPI in North Greenbush.
Tech Park 1.jpg
Tech Park 1.jpg (245.12 KiB) Viewed 10939 times
Tech Park 3.jpg
Tech Park 3.jpg (251.47 KiB) Viewed 10939 times
Be sure to check out the cascades below the falls:
Tech Park 4.jpg
Tech Park 4.jpg (203.32 KiB) Viewed 10938 times
The trails throughout the park are used by the public, and maps are available. The falls is off the red trail, which follows an old dirt road by the creek. If you're interested, I can send you detailed directions to get to the falls.
L_G_D
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Cool, another one I haven't been to - how do you get there? I know where the tech park is, on route 4, right?
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Matt
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Excellent contrast there with the fall leaves and the dark rock. Another fantastic set of photos! :up: :up:
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George
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It turns out there is another, larger set of falls here. I estimate the main falls to be about 50' feet high. The trails are marked as being funded by the Environmental Protection Fund, so I'm assuming they are open to the public.
Tech Park Main Falls.jpg
Tech Park Main Falls.jpg (223.17 KiB) Viewed 10863 times
Tech Park Main Falls Pano.jpg
The stream has worn down through a really loose shale that makes for some interesting scrambling
Shale & Fern.jpg
Shale & Fern.jpg (187.69 KiB) Viewed 10863 times
Loren - I'll send you the directions to these too
L_G_D
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Cool, thanks. That looks like the standard Albany shale, not sure the technical geologic term, Oriskany, maybe? I'd have to look it up, but it's all over the Albany area, and in some places can have pockets/veins of quartz crystals in it.
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George
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Here's a Google Earth shot of the main falls location. It's a short walk across the open field to a bridge and clearly marked trails to the falls. The lat and long are 42.684822 and -73.7065573 respectively. Unfortunately, the location of the smaller set is not as easily determined from Google Earth because new roads have been constructed in the area.

Matt, I'm not sure if you need locations for some of the falls I've posted, and what format is best for this. Drop me a note if you need anything for the annual update.
Tech Park Main.jpg
L_G_D
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Looking on the aerial view on bing, there seems to be another small fall downstream a bit.

Bing map view

I did a couple screen grabs and patched them together and lightened it a bit, marked the two falls that I can see.

[img2]http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/1134/techpark.jpg[/img2]

Be sure to make your browser window wide enough to see the whole thing.
Last edited by Matt on Sun Dec 06, 2009 11:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: changed the img tag tot he img2 tag, which makes the image fit better
LGD
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George
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I did see that second falls, and took a mediocre shot that I didn't post. That area had a lot of brush and someone flagged the stream bank with caution tape that I didn't feel like removing and replacing, like I did for the other shots. I guess the danger of slippery rocks, flaking shale and a 20-foot drop for the lower falls wasn't self-evident.

My guesstimate for the area of the smaller set of falls is shown here in the white polygon. I was hoping that it was on a tributary that merged with the main falls stream somewhere downstream, but it looks like they are separate drainages.
Area of Second Falls.jpg
I may try to get out this weekend with the GPS to get coordinates.
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