Grimes Glen

Place: Grimes Glen

Description: A gorge with three big waterfalls that you can get up close and personal with

Town: Naples, NY. Lots of great hiking, beautiful scenery, close to Honeoye lake, and delicious grape pie. You can't go wrong with Naples, it's a gem of a town.

Get there: In Naples, turn off of Main Street on to Vine Street, follow signs for Grimes Glen Park until Vine street ends at a parking lot.

My Hike: I went with the 4 girls in my suite on a day trip to Naples (the home town of Kara, one of my suite-mates). With the guidance of her friend Andy we had a very exciting hike here. My favorite part about glens/gorges is that you can have freedom to explore off the trail (if you keep the gorge in sight as a landmark you can always get back)

We took the trail up the creek till we got to the first waterfall then scrambled up the side of the glen and continued on the rim of the glen past the second water fall and up to the final one. Before the 3rd waterfall we climbed down the dirt wall of the glen (warning: lots of potential for getting dirty). From there we continued walking the creek bed down stream. When we got to the second waterfall Andy surprised us by leading down the actual rocks to the creek bed below. This is not for the faint of heart but doesn't require any technical climbing skills to accomplish. (I saw some rope as a path down farther away from the falls as another option... I would like to go back and give that route a try but it was muddy and would have been more dangerous (ironically) than clambering down the slippery rocks).

Then we kept going down the creek and passed the 1st waterfall. This waterfall is off to the side so you don't have to descend this one, but you can still play in it if desired. We then proceeded back to the car. If you haven't put this together yet, this hike will get you relatively dirty and quite wet, but the pay off of being so close to big waterfalls is fantastic. This was one of my favorite adventures this past fall, and I would love to go back again.

Note: It took us about 2 hours at a leisurely-exploring-pace. You can visit and enjoy without taking my route (then you won't get wet either). Careful about bringing your camera cause of the wetness factor (the picture below is of the second falls but it is courtesy of gowaterfalling.com because I didn't bring my camera).