Peppermill Gulf

[Brenda]

Dang, they're serious aren't they!?

[champy1013]

I think we can kindly thank the Syracuse Outdoors Club for bringing 30 people to traipse all over the land and act like morons for this posting

[Matt]

They do tend to have that affect.

[andyleahy]

Peppermill Gulf.pdf

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Folks,

At least some of the vaguely ominous "keep out (or else)" signs popped up before the Syracuse Area Outdoor Adventurers meetup group visited, June 28, 2008. In fact, there's a "posted" and a "no hiking" sign included in one of this group's pictures of their hike!

http://www.meetup.com/adventurers-103/p ... 6/#4664556

I think the Peppermill Gulf sign-makers were much more likely reacting to the overall attention this waterfall has received since getting publicized in Rich & Sue Freeman's book, 200 Waterfalls in Central & Western New York.

The land you must traverse to get to this waterfall is unquestionably privately owned. Anyone who can read a tax map, and who has an Internet connection, can look up the assessed owners. For instance, Chris Metott of Camden, NY, currently owns the vacant lot which adjoins the east side of the creek for 204.23 feet (blue on attached map). The majority of the rest of the creek corridor is split among three parcels assessed to B & B Family Limited Partnership, Jamesville, NY (red on attached map). This is a lumber company which is not necessarily unfriendly to hikers, judging from the fact that a long stretch of the very popular Onondaga Trail in Fabius, running between Spruce Pond and Hang Glider's Leap atop Jones Hill, crosses a B & B-owned piece of land, apparently by permission.

It's possible the Peppermill Gulf waterfall itself may actually fall on public land. You'd need a GPS location for the waterfall to check it. The Town of Onondaga still owns a rectangular piece encompassing the whole slope from Hogsback Road downhill and across the gulf, near where two streams join (yellow on attached map). It's listed on the tax rolls as the "former town dump," so that's where all the tires and rusty appliances and automotive carcasses came from. At one point in time, people heaved all that stuff over the edge of Hogsback Road, and it all tumbled to the bottom, where it still sits today. (Earth Day cleanup, anyone?)

Anyway, I'm not a lawyer, and it's not as though I've never trespassed myself, but I would like to say that I think the hiking/waterfalling community is keeping alive some convenient mythology here. Number one, the whole "public watershed," "walk along the bank," or "walk in the water" angle -- that seems like wishful thinking to me. If you could float a canoe through there, then, okay, maybe you can say you have an America-By-Gawd right to unimpeded passage upon "navigable waters."

Number two, no matter how slapdash the posting effort is, it's a pretty thin stretch for anyone to claim ignorance as a defense to trespass. I mean, it's not as though you'd be innocently crossing an unposted property line. Instead, you would have driven for miles, following directions to access private land that somehow got published in a book, to get out of the car, and then to walk directly past these homemade signs. It's not hard to inquire beforehand; it's just that many of us don't want to have our lurking suspicions confirmed -- that it's privately owned. (If it was publicly owned, the Freemans or nyfalls.com would probably have gleefully mentioned that fact.)

Number three, I don't think there's an exemption for light use, greenness, or benevolence of spirit. Whether you're having a beer party, stealing timber, shooting deer, or just walking around admiring the scenery, it all starts with trespassing.

Private landowners get bent out of shape when they sense an attitude of entitlement from trespassers. The landowners put their money down to buy the land, and they keep putting more money down to pay taxes on it. That ought to count for a certain level of respect. The hiking/waterfalling community should -- in its own self interest -- band together to find ways of showing that respect. Sometimes that means we have to do the work of research, and of outreach, and of asking permission. And sometimes that means we have to stay the hell out, no matter how tempting are the natural features upon the land.

In this case, you know, it might be worth it to just see if B & B even knows about the signs.

[Matt]

Thanks for your post Andy and welcome to the community. On of the purposes of this community is to share information on POSTED properties so we all can avoid trespassing.

I have a guide to trespassing here:
http://www.nyfalls.com/trespassing.html
and it has been reviewed by a lawyer (after being dumbed down by me).

[Kelly]

Update as of 10/8/13.

Shared via the NYFalls.com Facebook page. Thanks Matt C. for letting us know.

i live pretty close to peppermill gulf and the area is definitely posted. they have the usual no trespassing sign but they also threw up a large no hiking sign. saw you all were wondering if it was confirmed and it certainly is. shame that these people trash this beautiful gully and then block it off for all their neighbors.