Three Falls Forest harbors several unexpected treasures hidden in the southeast suburbs
of Syracuse, just seven miles southeast of downtown. To the west, across Sweet Road, is the massive pit known as Jamesville quarry.
Largely invisible and unknown, this surviving greenspace shelters many magnificent features, including the Three Falls, cliffs and ledges of the Onondaga Escarpment, the Bluestones—jumbled piles of powder blue, ringing rocks—and 200-year-old Lime Kiln antiquities.
At its core, this 175-acre forest shelters a magnificent Ancient Forest Cathedral in a Sinkhole Sanctuary—a very large, extra-deep cavity in the Onondaga Limestone ledge, with 200-year-old trees soaring to well over 100 feet tall. Not far away, in North Syracuse, is the Wizard of Oz Memorial Oak Grove, and nearer by is 1000 acres of old growth forest in Green Lakes State Park. Hidden in Three Falls Forest sits another emerald jewel—another remnant of ancient forest—more
evidence to disprove the common belief "there's no old growth forest left in central New York."
Onondaga Escarpment
the secret of Sweet Road
Three Falls Forest is at the east end of the Onondaga Escarpment—a series of limestone ledges that run west to Butternut Creek valley, then through Rock Cut into and up Onondaga Creek valley. This bed of Onondaga and Manlius Limestones formed 550 million years ago in a Devonian Era outburst of biological life in warm waters of Earth's ocean. Limestone is fossil shells of living cells left as sediments on the seafloor. This hard, resistant rock forms ridges that are the first foothills to rise from the sands of the Lake Ontario plain and climb into the Alleghany Plateau, the Appalachian foothills in southern New York.
Twelve thousand years ago, when the last Ice Age ended, this thick limestone ledge at the receding glacier's edge was etched
NOTICE
Restricted Access
These woods are privately owned.
Respect the owner's stewardship
of this forest:
step lightly
take nothing away
leave no disturbance
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by torrents of post-glacial meltwater flowing west to east. Rushing rivers scoured the hard rock into deep channels with unique geological
formations found few places on earth, including hanging waterfalls and plungepool lakes.
Today, Three Falls is the name taken for the three waterfalls that plunge 70 feet over this Escarpment into a canyon where they unite as a half-mile long tributary to Limestone Creek above its floodplain. And while much of the forest was severely disturbed in the 1800's by limestone mining, firewood cutting and logging, certain areas were not touched, and other areas were never plowed, and regenerated into woodlands.
Sinkhole Sanctuary
shelter from the storms
Three Falls Forest's northwest corner offered one such refuge. Just beyond and below the upper Escarpment cliffs, a large, bowl-shaped depression is sunk into the terrain. This hollow basin is not a normal water-worn landform, since it has no low-end opening for water outflow. While sinkholes up to 25 feet deep are common in limestone ledges such as this Escarpment, this one is nearly 70 feet deep—almost three times deeper. This cavity below the cliffs is an oval as much as 100 yards across, and half as wide.
Mixed varieties of hardwoods and hemlocks grow all around and within this depression. While the ground drops 70 feet into this basin, the tree canopy overhead is continuous and level. As a result, trees growing in the bottom of this sheltered space have an extra 60
The Outer Rim
medium-size hemlock
Three Falls Forest, Manlius, NY
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PHOTO DYarrow 7/28/05
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to 80 feet of trunk before branching out. For two to three foot diameter hardwoods to reach over 100 foot heights is almost a guarantee those trees exceed two centuries in age. and the effect of standing in a basin whose ceiling is such tall, straight-bole, ancient trees is much like standing among the pillars of a monumental catherdral.
Further, this combination of high canopy and sunken shelter creates an unusual space under the canopy which provides extra protection from high winds. This shaded shelter of still air holds humidity and moderates temperatures to create an ideal habitat for many creatures ranging from tree-nesting birds to moss-chewing millipedes. Plants, too, appreciate the enhanced moisture and soil humus, and this sinkhole is carpeted in moss and upholstered with hip-high ferns.
In a historic curiousity, legal anomaly and geographic oddity, this Sinkhole Sanctuary is part of the Village of Manlius. The Village incorporates an arm of land that extends west from Seneca Turnpike wellover halfway up the Three Falls ravine. But rather than continue west to the Three Falls, this arm turns north into a sharp dogleg that extends far enough to encompass the extent of the sinkhole. What motivated the Village of Manlius to extend it's western border in such an awkward manner to enclose this sinkhole? While ignoring the Three Falls?
The Eldest Ancestors
stunted, knarled and ancient trees
But the oldest trees in Three Falls Forest not likely to be the tallest, nor the most impressive-looking. The oldest-looking trees inhabit the most challenging and difficult sites—the edges and ledges of the Escarpment. Stunted, knobby, irregular—the oldest trees grow where soil is scarce, water intermittent and wind exposure severe. As a result, they grow very little year by year, and achieve very little in height or size. But they are survivors, and few are from species that attract commercial interests to cut them down for cash.
Elder Sentinel
four-stem hophornbeam
Three Falls Forest, Manlius, NY
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PHOTO LSpeer 7/26/05
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Bark is more valuable than size to estimate tree age. Many small trees growing along the cliffs and on the bare stone surfaces of the ledges have signs of very advanced age. Particularly cedar and hophornbeam, but also several black cherry sport highly textured bark that indicate long-term weathering and aging.
Numerous small diameter hophornbeam have very long, thin bark strips peeling vertically off their trunks. An early, modest guess safely dates these unremarkable, shaggy trees well before the American Revolution, and some may be many centuries old. Although commonly named "ironwood," this hard, dense, hard-to-cut, brittle wood had no value to settlers, loggers, or even limestone miners harvesting firewood for their cement kilns, so they left it alone. And the cliffs, ledges and ravines along the upper escarpment were too difficult to reach to ever be disturbed,
The End of the Forest
the covenant
For many years, Three Falls Forest was quietly protected by a common belief in a Covenant between the Town of Manlius and quarry owner Allied Chemical for "no new and different future use of the Manlius lands, other than
to leave said lands in their natural state" as a buffer between the quarry and town residents. This inaccessible woodland retreat was a well-kept secret among neighbors. With five miles of trails to hike, jog, cross-country ski, showshoe, bird watch, and over 65 species of mosses and many ferns, Three Falls Forest was an unofficial recreation park and nature preserve for Manlius residents.
Ancient Bark
centuries-old hophornbeam
Three Falls Forest, Manlius, NY
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PHOTO LSpeer 11/26/05
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But currently, Three Falls Forest continuation as a community greenspace is threatened. A private developer acquired the land from Allied in 1989, and recently revealed a plan to build 180 houses on the last contiguous greenspace in the Town of Manlius. A pristine common space will be chopped into private lots. Three Falls will become one lucky—and very wealthy—homeowner's personal backyard—a community resource now a private pleasure.
Time to Choose
preservation or devastation?
Very soon, bulldozers will flatten this unique forest—the last intact natural community in Manlius. Flowforrn glacial topography formed in ten thousand years of geological history will disappear under hard fill for building lots, lawns, driveways, and roads. Unless an intervention occurs, this unique habitat and special refuge for biodiversity will be extinct. Longstanding members of our local natural community will be evicted. In some cases, entire families will be refused their home or any place by the human community.
Unless intervention occurs to inject large doses of ecology awareness and democratic mettle into members of the Town of Manlius Board and Zoning Board, and their Attorneys, this unique habitat and special biodiversity refuge will be extinct. Longstanding members
of our local natural community will be evicted. In some cases, entire biological species and ecological families will be refused their longtime homes—or any place at all—by more subdivision-style human community.
Citizen Activism
democracy by the people
This threat of an imminent end to this local sylvan sanctuary mobilized residents to form Manlius Greenspace
Hemlock Elder
how tall is this ancestor?
Three Falls Forest, Manlius, NY
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PHOTO DYarrow 7/28/05
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Coalition to advocate that Three Falls Forest is a unique geological, biological, ecological, historical, and archaeological resource that must be protected as a permanent Nature Preserve, and developed as a community Nature Education Center.
Clearly, there is much in Three Falls Forest that needs to be protected, preserved and extended. And clearly, the Town and Zoning Boards see no need to protect nature from development. To these money-minded leaders, open space is empty space waiting for a builder, owner and taxpayer.
ecological resource that needs protection as a permanent Nature Preserve. Clearly, there is much here to protect, preserve and extend. Realizing they are indeed witnessing "the end of Nature" in their own community, Coalition members meet weeky to collect more information and devise a unified preservation plan for the Forest, the Village and the Town.
So, the wraps are off the secret of Sweet Road—the backyard wilderness known simply as "Three Falls Forest". Tuesday, August 2, 2005 the Syracuse Post Standard featured a page one story:
