[Journal entry for Bebruary 27, 2011; Buttermilk Falls]. Buttermilk Falls County Park is one of several along the ridge of the Hudson Palisades between Orangeburg NY and Nyack NY. The park is almost a mile long in its north/south dimension, but I visited only a small part near the falls. The last few days have been well above freezing, and I hoped that the meltwater would cause the falls to be lively, as proved to be the case. The day was in the mid forties, Fahrenheit, with partly sunny skies.

I parked in the lot on Greenbush Road, a little south of Route 59, and then headed east along a woodland trail. It ascends fairly steeply up a hill composed of black shale of Mesozoic age. Slabs of shale have been used to make steps along one of the steeper sections. A stream was flowing briskly in a valley to my left. In about five minutes, I reached an overlook at the top of a fairly narrow gorge that contains the falls. The falls might be said to have three sections: An upper cascade, where water rushes down a shallow groove eroded into the rock; the main falls, in a V-shaped notch, with a vertical dop of ten feet or so; and a lower cascase, with a wider canyon, where the stream flows over talus. The falls may be following an old geological fault. I noticed some slickenslides exposed on the wall of the notch.

The overlook at the top of the falls provides a very nice view of the upper cascade and main falls. It was very icy, though, and I had to tred very carefully. I hooked around the top of the falls, stepping across the little stream that supplies the water, and then walked down through the cleft of the falls, following what might have been a crude trail (the sporatic snow cover made identification difficult). I then picked my way through the talus of the lower cascade to where it joined another small stream, a tributary, I guess, which also had a small, but pretty cascades. This area has suffered a lot of erosiom, making a six-foot high scarp in the alluvium.

I then picked my way downstream, along the bed of the main stream. I passed an old bridge abuttment, made of stones held together with mortar. The stream has cut down into the bedrock in places, exposing beds of shale that dip gently to the west. One large (5 foot diameter) glacial erratic boulder, made of a light color roch I took to be gneiss, is lodged in the stream.

About 40 minutes or so.