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18 Comments

  1. Terry Conrow
    September 6, 2015 @ 9:43 am

    Damn, I found Grimes Glen but not this place! Will have to go back soon.

    • Chris
      September 10, 2015 @ 9:47 pm

      Grimes is a fun one too! Haven’t been there in ages. Probably time for a visit. Clark Gully is probably 20 minutes east or so from Grimes.

  2. Dad
    September 6, 2015 @ 9:55 am

    OMG, Don’t let your Mother see that pic of you on the rope. She’l have a heart attack!

    • Chris
      September 10, 2015 @ 9:48 pm

      I made it out safely. πŸ™‚ Ironically, I DID get hurt that day, but by picking up a beer bottle someone had tossed so I could carry it out of the park, and ended up cutting myself on it!

  3. davehoran
    September 6, 2015 @ 10:08 am

    Great post! I’ll need to take Ryan there for a visit.

    • Chris
      September 10, 2015 @ 9:48 pm

      Younger people are probably better climbers than us, too. πŸ˜‰

  4. revec2015
    September 6, 2015 @ 3:10 pm

    Contemplation of God and appreciation of Nature – always a great combination! thank you.

    • Chris
      September 10, 2015 @ 9:50 pm

      Glad you enjoyed this one too. It was a special place to be for a bit and nice to tap into the peace!

  5. Jenifer
    September 7, 2015 @ 7:38 pm

    There is a local Buffalo historian whose area of interest is in sacred geography/”Enchanted Landscape”; at one of his lectures he revealed a [Native American?] legend that the Star People were ‘delivered’ to Earth in Buffalo, on the Creek. Unfortunately I cannot recall all of the details. Have you heard of this?

    • Chris
      September 10, 2015 @ 10:00 pm

      Jenifer, thanks for your comment. The story sounds like something I’d be super interested in. Since you left it here, I’ve spent some time the last few days trying to dig up more and have come up empty handed. I found a group called the ‘Buffalo Star People’, but they’re in another part of the country altogether. I’m far from an expert in Native folklore, but I know a lot of stories involve the Earth and things around us, so the concepts you mention could totally be something from a local tribe, just not one I’m familiar with. Sorry! If you ever find it and want to share though, get back in touch!

  6. Liam
    September 7, 2015 @ 8:41 pm

    Clark’s Chasm (as my family always called it) is a great place! I spent a lot of time there as a kid. This is a very informative article. However, I’d just like to point out that South Hill is not a moraine. A moraine is a line of debris created at the edges of a glacier. If South Hill was a moraine, when you walked into Clark’s Gully you’d see an unsorted mix of gravel, rocks, sand, and clay. Instead you see those shale walls, because South Hill is solid, and actually part of a dissected plateau, an originally flat, raised area which was carved into by (in this case) glaciers, creating the signature U-shaped valleys on the area, along with the Finger Lakes. The Gully formed later.

    • Chris
      September 10, 2015 @ 10:02 pm

      This is great info Liam, thanks!! I admit that I didn’t pay as close attention in science class as I should’ve. I have always struggled with the difference between a moraine and a drumlin. Would South Hill be a drumlin then? Or am I just grasping at geological buzzwords?

      • Liam
        September 11, 2015 @ 12:33 am

        Haha, no worries, I study environmental science, so I know a little bit more than average. I’m afraid you’ll off the mark again. A drumlin would, like a moraine (or several other glacial landforms), be an mass of dirt and gravel, not solid stone. Also, there aren’t any drumlins around there, most of the drumlins in upstate are all in the more open area north of the Finger Lakes. If you’ve ever walked up and down the streets of Syracuse, you’ve walked up and down drumlins. So, no, South Hill is just what I said, part of a dissected plateau.

  7. Scot
    November 4, 2015 @ 10:12 am

    Great article! I have also hiked up Clark gully in the past, its a great place. just a minor “FYI’..you said: “South Hill is a towering moraine”..that’s not correct, it isn’t a moraine. South hill is a..hill! πŸ˜‰ or even a mountain, (depending on how you define hill versus mountain.) but its way too large to be a moraine. A glacial moraine can be a small hill, but they usually aren’t very high, and they are totally comprised of loose gravel and dirt. it’s basically a gravel deposit left on the ground by a glacier. South hill is solid rock, bed rock. It existed before the glacier and was not created by it.. It was carved and smoothed somewhat by the glacier, but it wasn’t deposited by the glacier, as a moraine is.

  8. Scot
    November 4, 2015 @ 10:15 am

    doh! *after* I posted, the recent comments about the hill’s composition came up! πŸ˜‰ I didn’t see them before..sorry about that..Liam already explained the hills composition.

  9. Finger Lakes NON-Wine Trail: Canandaigua Lake |
    April 7, 2016 @ 7:32 am

    […] that feeds the idea that Canandaigua Lake is sacred. Senecas believed that the Earth opened up in Clark’s Gully, and their forefathers first emerged from the gully to populate the Earth from that very […]

  10. Tom
    April 17, 2018 @ 8:00 am

    Wow… If more people left comments like these. I have been hanging out there for years and after reading this gained even more appreciation for what is right under my feet. Thanks

  11. ERIC KUHN
    March 6, 2021 @ 9:21 am

    I FOUND A ROCK IN CLARK GULLY SUNNYSIDE NAPLES WHEN I WAS YOUNG AND STILL HAVE IT IS THERE ANYBODY WHO CAN GIVE ME ANY INFORMATION ON THIS