GASPORT, NY
ROYALTON RAVINE
For those of you who live near/in Buffalo, NY I assume you are in the same boat as me when I say where and what is Gasport??? But believe me that after going on this adventure you will never be a stranger to Gasport again!
Pulling up to the park you will be greeted by a small parking lot along with a Royalton Ravine sign. When I visited the extended road leading back towards the pond was blocked off, so the parking lot is as far as we could drive in. I'm thinking that during peak season you can drive up closer to the limited shelter areas.
At first glance it wasn't clear where to begin so my friend and I started heading towards the pond area. The pond area was surprising pleasant and surrounded by acres of vibrant green grass. Not to mention it was a nice place to sit down and relax on one of the benches.
While enjoying the beauty of the pond we luckily saw a group of people exit the woods up ahead. After further investigating we were able to locate the trail head.
MUD AHEAD
My friend Sue was in town from Vegas and at the time she didn't have the right shoes for hiking. I ended up having her jump on my back and carried her through the main woods area until we got to the fork in the path.
To start we went right, but that only lead to a short trail and back out to the pond area. So if you want to get to the bridge and waterfall right away then I suggest going left instead of right at the fork.
After proceeding left you should see a set of stairs. Take those and when you hit the bottom continue on straight until you come across the suspension bridge.
We got lucky and had a good amount of uninterrupted play time on the bridge .. including a quick workout.
Next, we followed the trail along the creek and up a hill until we made it to the next land mark, the stone structure.
Come to find out that the stone structure was actually homestead ruins owned previously by BELVA LOCKWOOD. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Belva-Ann-Lockwood
While taking a quick photo at the ruins we could faintly hear the rushing water of what we assumed was the water fall not to far away. Indeed that was the case... right around the corner lead us to the top of the waterfall. The view from the top was nice but, if you want a different option there is another trail that will lead you to a view from down below. With that said unfortunately I did not fully explore that trail but it does exist.
After seeing the waterfall we headed back the same way we came.. all in all we found ourselves very satisfied with the adventure that Royalton Ravine had to offer.
Photo of the falls provided from www.alltrails.com
TRAIL MAP
I don't know about you but sometimes trail maps can make me feel overwhelmed. So I decided to use my awesome skills and draw one out that shows the paths I took. The yellow represents going left at the fork and the orange if you go right. There was also other paths we saw along the way but didn't adventure down. (Please leave a comment if you go and find other cools paths worth mentioning)
