Montville Falls

Montville Falls is a roughly 70-foot tall veiling horsetail style waterfall along Dresserville Creek in Moravia. The land around the falls is posted. We had a very cordial interaction with the landowner in which we inquired as to the "why" of the posting of the property. A bit of background: It was an old millsite that sat abandoned for many years, so visitation became the habit. It IS a nice waterfall on a fairly large stream after all. The owner answered: "Haha, where to start. I guess the big one is liability...we live in a gorge with a beautiful waterfall at the edge of property. 2 years ago a photographer tried to climb down the gorge to take pictures; he fell and died! We have people daily walking through our property when it is nice out. We have a young daughter, so you can understand why we don't want complete strangers wandering around on our property. And most times they have been drinking. People throw beer bottles, so there is broken glass everywhere and they leave fishing lures in the water so it's not really safe for our daughter to swim. We had someone ring the doorbell at 7 am on Christmas to ask if they could go back to the falls. I have had people threaten my wife and I with bodily harm when we have told them it's private property. We originally allowed people to go back, but like everything else, people abused it and so now we have an absolutely not policy. Hate to be those people, but enough is enough and God forbid my daughter ever comes across a dead body on our property because someone is being stupid." There are several good reasons here for the owner to disallow visitation. In our experience, the vast majority of landowners don't post their property because they're selfish, they post because they've been worn down by fear of liability, loss of privacy, or weariness of vandalism and littering. Or any combination of the three factors. This is why we encourage people to be mindful and respectful. We are stewards of the land.