Trip Report: Rainbow Falls CNY

This year is warmer so the southern and central state stuff is not consistent. I looked north more and found this on a waterfalls in NY website. It's on some DEC land up near Adams Center a little south from Watertown. Easy drive. I am writing this because I gathered no one really climbs this one. It is 100% accessible on state land and I did no trespassing to get there.

Drive there. Search Barnes Corners NY in google. Once you see that map zoom in and you will recognize this. The red marker is where I parked, the blue dot is where the fall is. On Verizon I had very good service in this location. Oddly the hand-help GPS wasn't working. I parked on the side of the road, there was plenty of space.


First off, you have to access it from the East. Dont even try West, I already did. It would be a pain and you'd have to cross the water, I wouldn't want to do that. Using the above photo, travel a straight line between the dots. You may see 'no trespassing' signs to the north and south. Google says the state land chunk there is larger than it actually is. But I made it there without violating anything. Head straight east til you get to the gorge edge and you will be fine. This is where I parked (red marker on google maps photo). You can see the DEC plate on the tree and possibly my snowshoe tracks below. Oh yeah, you need snowshoes. Bigger = better. Tug Hill gets a lot of snow. I have 30"ers I used out West and they worked pretty good. Sunk 6" or so avg. BTW I didn't mention there is not trail. Which is probably why no one ever climbs this.


If you get to the big gorge edge (100 ft or more down) but dont see the fall, you probably have to walk north on the edge a little. That happened to me. You will wind up seeing a stream (that goes to the fall) carving out a smaller gorge to the top of the fall. You have to go down that. Walking in ice so use caution. I still had the snowshoes on which is probably good for weight distribution on this part. You can see my tracks again.


A nice tree to setup on.


The fall from the bottom. You may see a bunch of 8's in the rope, that's because I was solo. One side of the 60m was used for rappelling and the other used as climbing protection. Fall has about 45 ft of actual ice climbing. I thought it was a great climb, but I only did one ascent being solo. Felt my forearms would have a tough time getting back up for the first real climb of the year. I really want to do this one again. I thought it was completely worth it. Just need to bring some other people next time.

 

The hike in was about 1/2 mile. Didnt mention that.

 

So you know any other hidden secrets? Lol can use some.