Mineral Springs Falls and Jupiter Rock in Black Rock Forest, Cornwall, NY

Описание: I have known about Mineral Springs Falls for some time. It is the first waterfall mentioned in the used book I bought years ago, “New York Waterfalls” (2010) by Scott E. Brown. But because it’s in the direction of New York City just north of Bear Mountain and Harriman State Park, two popular hiking destinations for city-dwellers, I imagined there would always be crowds. So I avoided it and opted instead the Catskills upstate, farther away from the city, where Nature surely abounds and solitude more easily gained.

That way of thinking, I learned, is not always right.

I hiked Black Rock State Forest where Mineral Springs Falls is located one early sunrise when, while revisiting my old copy of the book, “New York Waterfalls”, I learned (again) that the waterfall was just 30 minutes away.

What I found looked like undisturbed* Nature, the same as what one would expect farther upstate, with plant life possibly even more diverse. There were the usual ferns, moss, trees, and shrubs, but I’d say with greater variety for just one locality. Indeed, Black Rock Forest is “a living laboratory for field-based research and education, encompassing native terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems that are increasingly rare in the region,” according to its website, blackrockforest.org.

A section of the Old Mineral Springs Trail which I took ascends 676 feet but involved passing through a level region with tall hickory(?) trees in all directions as far as the eye can see. How much more welcoming can a forest be?

Then there were the streams and waterfalls, boulders, ledges, and rock formations that seemed to break the pattern and guarantee that the visitor’s expectations of what a trip in Nature should be like will all be met.

I used to say, calm emanates from within. When engulfed in the hustle-and-bustle of city life, all one needed to still the frenzied mind was a small pocket of quiet—the shade of a tree at a park, a bench on an esplanade, or the coffee shop frequented by locals—pockets that can be found even in a city as busy as New York, if one cared enough to look.

Magnify the scale and I say Black Rock Forest becomes the same pocket of quiet in an ever-increasing world of urbanization.

- Not completely undisturbed. "In the late 19th century, Black Rock Forest had been heavily cleared and featured much pasture and farmland." Source: blackrockforest.org