Sehgahunda, the Vale of Three Falls

Geologic Time

Ten thousand years ago, the last ice sheet retreated from Western New York, leaving the Genesee River to its enduring task of carving a massive gorge through what would eventually become farm country between the towns of Portageville and Mount Morris. The Seneca people knew this gorge as Sehgahunda, the Vale of Three Falls. With the arrival of European settlers, the gorge was deforested and cluttered by the mills and machinery of pioneer industry. Tolkien's Treebeard would have described these people as having, "mind[s] of metal and wheels." 

Starting in 1859, William Pryor Letchworth purchased land along the river to construct his Glen Iris estate, establishing this residence adjacent to the valley's magnificent 107 foot tall Middle Falls. Further, he restored the natural beauty of the gorge and preserved the history and artifacts of the indigenous people that preceded him there, thus earning an honorary Seneca name of Hai-Wa-Ye-Is-Tah, roughly translating to "he who does the right thing." 

Near the turn of the 20th century, a new company formed to exploit the river's resources, potentially at the expense of the canyon's natural beauty. Fearing this threat to the Glen Iris and his beloved river valley, Letchworth donated his entire one thousand acre estate to New York State for use as a public park. In 1907, Letchworth State Park was born, preserving the Glen Iris and gorge in perpetuity. Letchworth lived the rest of his days at the Glen Iris, passing away in December 1910. Today, Letchworth State Park remains an awe-inspiring monument to the grandeur of nature, the power of the Genesee River over geologic timescales, and a man who sought to preserve its beauty for all to enjoy.

The World According to Calvin's Dad

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
17 Jan 2026	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - 5G0 (Le Roy) - SDC	2.0	3103.8

It was not a perfect day to fly, but being flyable in January made it the right day to fly. After satisfactorily working through a few takeoffs and landings at Le Roy in gusty winds, I returned to one of my favorite aerial sightseeing destinations: the southern end of Letchworth State Park.

Letchworth's canyon cleaves the rolling farmland south of Le Roy with such a narrow fissure that it can be difficult to find if an aviator is flying too low and too far east or west. Once above the gorge, however, there is no mistaking it. 

Canyon wall north of the Great Bend.

In the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin's dad asserted that the world itself once existed in monochrome, using old black and white photographs and TV shows as evidence. Aerial views on winter days are almost enough to lend credence to this hypothesis, but even on such high contrast days, a hint of color still exists.

Archery Field at Letchworth State Park.

Direct sunlight warmed the Archery Field, leaving the canyon wall at Great Bend in shadow.

A portion of Great Bend, a massive example of how water will follow the path of least resistance.

Of the three major waterfalls in Letchworth State Park, Middle Falls is the most impressive at 300 feet wide and 107 feet tall. Always magnificent, it appears soft and lush in the summer, fancifully colored in autumn, and austere in the winter.

Letchworth is renowned on the East Coast as a balloon-navigable gorge. You haven't lived until you've gone over Middle Falls in a hot air balloon. Highly recommended.

Upper Falls was nearly obscured by its own misty spray beneath the Genesee Arch Bridge.

The Genesee River forms an oxbow around Portageville, NY. I circled the falls twice in a battle with turbulence to capture clear photos of the canyon. To the southwest, a line of snow obscured the air like a drawn theater curtain that advanced forward to swallow the audience. It was time to retreat to the clearer skies over Sodus.

Momentary Mountains

Midfield at the Williamson Sodus Airport.

After touching back down at Sodus, I was struck by the snow piles already towering well above my airplane, mountains persisting for just a relative instant on the timescale of the Genesee River's work at Letchworth. It was satisfying to exercise my airmanship chops in the rough air and to revisit Letchworth after a long absence.