Judd Falls

Take US Highway 20 to the town of Cherry Valley, and exit onto Route 166. The parking area for the trail to Judd Falls is located directly across the street from the westbound exit / on ramps, adjacent to where Salt Springville Road intersects Route 166. Follow a trail through the clearing to the edge of the gorge, then bear right and down the path descending into the gorge. After a few hundred feet, the trail makes a sharp left switchback and continues descending to the base of the falls. Some minor scrambling over piles of landslide debris may be necessary near the base of the falls, and one or two bad mud holes will need to be circumvented, but otherwise the path down is in good condition. The bottom of the falls will be encountered about one-quarter of a mile from the parking area.Judd Falls is a fairly lofty but low volume waterfall found high up at the headwaters of Canajoharie Creek on the south side of the Mohawk River valley in the town of Cherry Valley. The falls drop 122 feet into a deep gulf carved into the plateau, the stream first sliding over an angled pitch of rock, then free-falling in dozens of sinuous threads of water to a bench where the water spreads out again and free-falls further after being scattered by the rock shelf. The falls are often cited as falling 135 feet, our survey in May of 2018 found that figure to be slightly generous, but it is possible that there may be a few more feet worth of cascades at the top of the falls which we were unable to incorporate within our measurements at the time. At this point in its life, Canajoharie Creek is quite small, draining from a basin above the falls which covers only about one square mile in area. A small section of the basin contains forested swamp land, but much of the area is farm land and aside from one small pond there is no standing water feeding in to the creek. As we encountered in May of 2018, without sustained heavy rainfall or snow melt, the volume of the creek at the falls will be quite low, and should be expected to be entirely dry during the summer months outside of periods when storms pass through. During those fleeting periods of heavy flow however, the falls may spread out to as much as 40-50 feet in width at its apex.The USGS lists the falls as Judds Falls, but Russell Dunn's "Mohawk Region Waterfall Guide" book lists it without the trailing "s", so we suspect this is the correct spelling to use.