All Categories - Friends of Robert H. Treman State Park

STONE STAIRS, a mile back in the woods

11/5/2025

I knew that the Gorge Trail would close soon for the season soon, so I decided to venture down from the Upper Park in late October.
[Note: Do NOT enter the Gorge Trail in winter! See why at the end of this post.]

It's been years since I walked the full length of the Gorge Trail. A bothersome hip has set limits on how far I'll go on one of my frequent walks in the woods. I mostly have kept my rambles at Treman centered around the Upper Park.

That's why I couldn't recall just where this long, stone staircase is. Laborers from the Civil Conservation Corps (CCC) camp in the park constructed it in the 1930s, as shown in these photographs.

Josh Teeter, the director of environmental education in the Finger Lakes State Parks, reminded me some time ago that it is halfway down the Gorge Trail. So, I decided to go find it, heading down through the rocky Upper Gorge into the wooded canyon below.

And there it was, a short walk past the mile marker sign; just where it was when those CCC young men built it in1934. It's a long, impressive stone stairway constructed by hand a mile back in the woods.
Though it's a mile back along the Gorge Trail (or the "North Glen Trail," as it appears to have been known as in the 1930s), the park is much longer than it is wide. As "Jim" remarked in the comments below, the masons likely were able to get much closer to the location of the staircase via a service road that connects to the Rim Trail, . So they woudn't actually have had to haul materials a mile back into the woods. Nonetheless, it clearly was quite a project, and itt's another monument to the hard work and achievements of those young men about 90 years ago.

We shouldn’t give all the credit, however, to the CCC for our wonderful trail masonry. Much of it was built by park staff in the 1920s, especially in the Upper Gorge. The 1930s CCC crews were supervised by park masons. Furthermore, the stairs, bridges, and walls are not static. In the face of the rigors of gorge ice, rockslides, floods, and the pounding of millions of feet, they've needed maintenance and repair by trail crews for the century since.

~Tony Ingrahan, Board President
Friends of Robert H. Treman State Park

NOTE: Do NOT enter the Gorge Trail in winter! Extreme ice formations and the danger of rockfalls caused by freezing and thawing on the cliffs make it very dangerous, sometimes resulting in fatalities to poeple who ignore this, and risk to rescuers.
You must wait until the Gorge Trail is reopened in the spring, AFTER a process called "scaling" has taken place, which involves staff removing winter-loosened rock from cliffs above the trail. Watch a video about "scaling" the high cliffs in the Upper Gorge.

Some History of the Interpretation of the History of the Old Mill Museum in Robert H. Treman State Park

10/26/2025

By Tony Ingraham

The season is winding down now at Robert H. Treman State Park. Winter weather soon will force some trail closings, and the Old Mill Museum in the Upper Park will shutter until spring (by mid-November, park staff predict; check with the park for status.)

The mill museum displays a history of water power in the former hamlet of Enfield Falls that preceded the creation of the park. And there is a history to the interpretation of that history itself.

This summer, Les in the park office was cleaning out a file cabinet and she found a stack of old, five-page, typed handouts that we used to offer to visitors in the mill back in the 1970s and 1980s, and possibly earlier. I began working for the parks in 1979 and it was the only interpretation Robert H. Treman State Park had available for visitors to the mill.

In the 1990s, I contracted a historian and a graphic artist to produce most of the exhibits you find throughout the mill today. (The Finger Lakes State Parks’ interpretive unit plans to modernize them.)

Since 1998, Cornell archeologist Sherene Baugher and her students have worked with the support of the Friends of Treman to develop and install exhibit cases and exhibit panels that tell the story of the former little 19th century community of Enfield Falls for which the mill was a centerpiece.

Except maybe for engineering nerds, however, I think that few visitors make the effort to fully comprehend the workings of this large, marvelous, mostly-wood, water-powered machine. Even with the aid of the many exhibits, it takes some time and attention (and stair climbing) to follow the ups and downs of grain and flour among the processes on the four floors of the museum. I think today’s casual park visitor would find it even more challenging to follow the details in that old handout that Les found in the file cabinet.
(Image below courtesy of Josh Teeter, Finger Lakes State Parks)

Even I had forgotten about that old handout. Nonetheless, I invite you to take a look at it. It may be difficult to imagine the workings of the mill without actually being in the building. I think, however, that the handout does give an appreciation of the knowledge, skill, experience, and precision it took for the 19th century millers to produce the fine flours and meal from local farmers’ wheat, buckwheat, and corn.

You can download and see the handout here.

rhtmill-old-description_.pdf
File Size:	2452 kb
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We don’t know who prepared this handout, nor when; but there is a clue. On page 2, it mentions, “A long wooden ‘barrel’ led from the top of the penstock to a bulkhead situated on the hill between the rock wall and the bridge (over the creek at the rear of this mill).”
As the photos below show.

The bridge and the “bulkhead” (and the mill pond above) are long gone, blown out by a terrible flood in 1935. Might this old interpretive handout have been written before that?

This is what the Mill Falls look like today.

Rescue of Enfield Falls

10/16/2025

The Friends of Treman are pleased to present this encore episode of the Ithaca public access TV show, Walk in the Park, produced by Friends board president, Tony Ingraham in 2020. You can watch it here online anytime,
and on Ithaca TV channel 13 (on cable or on the Spectrum TV app) at the following times:
Thursday, October 16, at 9 p.m.
Friday, October 17, at 3 p.m.
Saturday, October 18, at .9 a.m. & 5 p.m.
Sunday, October 19, at 9:30 a.m. & 5 p.m.
This schedule repeats next week.

Description:
Visitors today walk into the upper gorge at Robert H. Treman State Park near Ithaca, NY to see the spectacular Lucifer Falls plunge into its huge rock amphitheater. But in the early 1800s, it was called Enfield Falls, as was the "agricultural service hamlet" of Enfield Falls just upstream, complete with mills, a blacksmith shop, post office, school, general store and other businesses as well as a couple of dozen houses. In 1853, Henrietta Wickham opened the Enfield Falls Hotel to serve tourists who found their ways up the country roads to see this gem of New York State scenery. But by 1914, the hamlet was in decline, the hotel was in ruins, and the wooden walkways into Enfield Glen that had been built and maintained by the hotel operators had fallen apart.
In 1915, a prominent businessman and his wife from Ithaca drove their car up the new state highway near Enfield Falls. They had come to enjoy the gorge and waterfalls, as they had remembered them from ten years earlier. But they were disappointed and dismayed by the condition of the place. They were Robert H. Treman and his wife Laura. Robert Treman determined to restore beauty to the place and to make the gorge and falls accessible to the public once more, and forever.

Walk in the Park is a public access television series produced in Ithaca, NY by Tony Ingraham, Owl Gorge Productions at PEGASYS Studio, and is shown bi-weekly on Ithaca channel 13.

Article: “The Old Mill at Robert H. Treman State Park”

10/6/2025

Amelia Kaufman, graphic designer for the Finger Lakes State Parks, has written and had published an excellent article about the Treman mill in the Upper Park. It appeared in this summer’s issue of Old Mill News of SPOOM, the Society for the Preservation of Old Mills. The Friends are a member organization.

Congratulations, Amelia!

Below is her article excerpted from the magazine, followed by a link to a pdf of selected pages of the issue, including her article beginning on page 18, which you may find more readable.

Enjoy!

oldmillnews-rhtarticle.pdf
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As the Leaves Begin to Let Go

10/5/2025

By Tony Ingraham
We have entered the final season when the Gorge Trail will be open, before it must be closed for winter hazards. I’ve been getting out into the rocky Upper Gorge as much as possible doing two things: “roving interpretation” where I position myself at various locations and answer hikers’ questions about the gorge, help them plan their route, and give suggestions as to other parks and natural areas they might want to visit. I enjoy chatting with so many people and finding out where they are from and what they are interested in.

On these same occasions, I have been sculpting my thoughts about a few trailside interpretive signs we plan to design for the Upper Gorge, as well as for some other related locations nearby. We want to tell the geological story behind this magnificent scenery that has drawn visitors for more than 170 years. We’re hoping to have these in place during the 2027 season.

To inform my mind further on the relationship between people and this rare, rock terrain, I agreed to lead a group from GIAC Seniors in Ithaca on an interpretive walk on the “Upper Loop.” That is, we walked down the Upper Gorge past Lucifer Falls, crossed the wooden footbridge down below, and ascended the Cliff Staircase to the Rim Trail and its two overlooks. Finally, we returned to the Upper Park. We took our time, resting at several landings, before finally being rewarded with the big look back at Lucifer Falls and the gaze back at the forested canyon that winds nearly two miles to the Lower Park. Climbing from the bottom of the wooded gorge to the top of the Rim overlooking Lucifer proved very challenging for one or two in our party of elders. Indeed, I’d done it alone in the two weeks prior to insure that I myself would not be distracted by my own difficulty on those flights of stone risers.

While I had been planning for this guided walk, I’d gone back and forth in my mind as to whether to lead us up or down the Cliff Staircase. One person who had climbed it recently advised that I consider the reverse route to avoid this compressed ascent up the flank of the wooded canyon. I tried walking down it alone one afternoon and I concluded that if someone should lose their footing while descending, a pitch forward down stone stairs could be disastrous compared to stumbling while ascending.. On the morning of our walk, the previous night’s rain confirmed my choice. No one stumbled.

Lately, I have been showing relevant encore episodes of my Ithaca public access TV series, Walk in the Park; showing online Ithaca cable channel 13 and on the Spectrum app. Currently I am showing “Treman’s Legacy.”
You can watch it online anywhere, anytime right here.

The remaining schedule on Ithaca area TV is:
Sunday, October 5, at 5 p.m.
Thursday, October 9, at 9 p.m.
Friday, October 10, at 3 p.m.
Saturday, October 11, at 9 a.m. & 5 p.m.
Sunday, October 14, at 9:30 a.m. & 5 p.m.

Photos by Zack Nelson, GIAC Seniors

Climbing Cliff Staircase

9/27/2025

They call it the Cliff Staircase. It’s how you climb out of the ancient, wooded gorge of Enfield Glen, to the top of the hill where you can gaze back upon the canyon of trees as it winds east toward Inlet Valley. Then you turn and walk beneath the hemlocks to marvel at Lucifer Falls, as it plunges from the newer rock gorge. But first you must climb these stone stairs, that only a grade schooler might bother to count, as they make switchbacks up the side of the ancient, forested canyon.

Enfield Glen is mostly quiet these days

2/22/2025

Chickadees may speak their names among the low branches. Nuthatches yank. Trees overhead occasionally roar in the wind, but then are quiet again. An old oak aches as the breeze twists it.

An occasional car pulls into the plowed parking lot in the Upper Park.Hikers hidden under hoods and gloves head for the Rim Trail. They stride between their trekking poles on the lumpy, undulating snow to gasp at Lucifer Falls in its ice tomb. No roar of the waterfall today; just a slight swishing of water struggling beneath the ice.

Late February Is looking down its nose at March. Daylight savings time starts in two weeks. That’s supposed to mean spring, right?
Yet, sometimes the heaviest snows come in March.

Summer, with its green leaves, with children splashing in the water, with smoke from the campfires, all still seem like a scene in some far off tropical land.

Visitor Comments!

1/31/2025

For years, the Friends of Treman have placed an informal visitor comment book inside the Mill Museum. During this past season, our current notebook had filled up with notes from people from all over the world since August 2023. I’ll be sharing some of those comments here and on our Facebook page in the weeks that come.

This edition of the book (see below) was started in August 2023, with an entry from our Vice President, Bob Kellogg, from Newfield, NY, near the park. I’ve copied much of the first page below. Besides entries from central NY, there are comments from people from Brazil, New Jersey, Indiana, Manhattan, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Florida; El Salvador, Sacketts Harbor NY, Seoul Korea, Virginia, Denver CO, Michigan, NYC, Maryland, and Bhutan!
And that’s just in the first four days.
From time to time, I’ll continue to share interesting comments from the visitor book.

Winter Walk to Lucifer Falls

1/24/2025

A Virtual Experience!
Join Friends of Treman president, Tony Ingraham, on a virtual walk to ice-clad Lucifer Falls on the Rim Trail from the upper park. This is a half hour 2018 encore episode of Tony’s Ithaca public access TV show, Walk in the Park, watchable online anytime and anywhere (see link below), and on Ithaca cable channel 13 at the following times:

Thursday, Jan. 23, 9 p.m.
Friday, 3 p.m.
Saturday, 9 a.m. & 5 p.m.
Sunday, Jan. 26, 9:30 a.m. & 5 p.m.
This schedule repeats next week.

Watch it online now!

Friends of Robert H. Treman State Park
105 Enfield Falls Road, Ithaca, NY 14850
Tremanparkfriends.org

“The Flume”

1/11/2025

Yes, it’s winter and the Gorge Trail is closed. But let’s reflect on one of the amazing features of Enfield Glen in this little video clip.

Notice the rock slot that the creek shoots through here in the Upper Gorge.
What might have caused this?
For a clue, follow the straight edge of the pool that this “Flume” empties into; and notice that a big crack continues in the same line up the cliff ahead.
The rock of the Upper Gorge is criss-crossed by fractures like this one, called “joints,” and water is forced to pass where these big cracks direct it.
Over time, flowing water loosened and cleared out rock between two narrowly parallel joints to create the Flume slot below.
In fact, the entire Upper Gorge is ruled by joints.