Pinnacle Falls

Buttermilk Falls State Park is located at the very south end of the city of Ithaca, just east of Route 34 – signs for the park are abundant along the highway. From the parking lot, cross either of the two footbridges below the swimming area and begin hiking up the Gorge Trail. Pinnacle Falls is encountered about two-thirds of a mile up from the start of the trail, just beyond a stone footbridge which crosses Buttermilk Creek (don’t cross).Buttermilk Creek, like so many others in the Finger Lakes area, courses down a narrow gorge as it descends into the glacially carved valley occupied by Cayuga Lake at the south end of the city of Ithaca. What makes the various falls of Buttermilk Creek unique is the structure of the gorge. The creek descends about 430 feet in just over two-thirds of a mile, dropping over at least eight distinct waterfalls. Initially the falls start as small plunges and cascades, but as the stream descends the falls get progressively taller, wider, and less steep. Pinnacle Falls is the second-to-last major waterfall one will encounter when progressing upstream along the Gorge Trail in Buttermilk Falls State Park from the parking lot. The falls are visible from the trail just past a stone footbridge which crosses over to the north side of the gorge. The falls drop in two steps over broad bedrock shelves, the first spilling 18 feet over a 30-foot wide ledge, and the second dropping another 9 feet over a 20-foot wide ledge. A large pool below the falls frames the scene, while the Gorge Trail climbs past the falls via a series of stone steps which have been very tastefully incorporated into the scene so as to not feel like an unnatural intrusion. Immediate upstream from the falls lies Pinnacle Rock – a 50-foot tall free standing spire which looms over the middle of the canyon. Near Pinnacle Rock is a near perfectly circular pothole carved in the bedrock, evidence of the stream’s one time course and of another waterfall that once existed but has long since disappeared. The drainage basin for Buttermilk Creek covers an area of about 11-1/2 square miles in area, and while it does hold a couple of small ponds and bogs, there are no large sources of standing water feeding the creek. This results in the stream varying in volume considerably as the seasons progress. By late summer the creek can be reduced to just a trickle, though we haven’t seen evidence that it has a tendency to dry out entirely.