By Stan Freeman
Staff Writer
It’s the contrast that’s so striking – as if you’ve stumbled upon a three-ring circus in the middle of a desert. Hiking through a forest, with the silence broken only by the occasional birdsong, one may gradually be aware of a vague roar of water ahead. Fifty yards more and it may turn ludicrously loud, totally out of place in such a quiet landscape.
Waterfalls precede themselves that way.
Even little Buffam Falls in Pelham, more of a series of cascades than an actual falls, can be heard long before it’s seen.
On a recent afternoon, after days on end of rain, Joseph Bushee used a gnarled walking stick to make his way down a well-trodden path through Buffam Falls Conservation Area.
Reaching the falls, the water was pouring ferociously over terraces of slate.
Bushee, a computer network specialist from Greenfield, has made it his mission to locate all the waterfalls in Western Massachusetts and to chronicle them on his Web site. The Web address is www.geocities.com/jbushee/guide.htm but it is easily reached by entering the phrase “waterfalls of Western Massachusetts” in any search engine.
To date, Bushee has found 47 falls in the state and about 38 in Western Massachusetts.
To him, waterfalls are to hiking what the prize is to a box of Crackerjacks. An incentive.
People go hiking, but it’s nice to have some kind of objective,” he said. “I started getting into hiking a few years back. I bought some trail guides, but most of the waterfalls I found weren’t on the maps. That got me thinking.”
He decided to search for and compile a list. He planned to find falls mainly through his own explorations, analyzing contour maps to determine the most likely locations before setting out. It was hard going.
“Unless you’re willing to hike down every trail that appears to be going down a steep contour, it will be hit or miss.”
Then he put up a Web site, posting the falls he’d found. “I’ve scrounged them from wherever I could. Several I’ve gotten from assorted guide books. But I’ve also gotten submissions from visitors to the site.”
On his site, the 23 main falls of the four western counties are detailed with maps, directions and his own photos of each. More of the 15 or so falls he’s found in this region will be added at some point, he said.
Waterfalls, like most everything else, fall into categories, but the dividing line between the categories is sometimes blurred.
A cascade is a waterfall that typically descends gradually, in a series of small steps. It may be just a brook or stream moving down a slope of rocks.
A cataract is a waterfall with a single, sheer drop and usually involves a large volume of water. What aren’t cataracts or cascades fall back into the general category of waterfalls.
John B. Brady, a geologist from Smith College in Northampton and the author of “Fifty Hikes in Massachusetts,” said waterfalls are usually found where there is considerable rise and fall to the land.
“We have more waterfalls in Western Massachusetts because we have topography, we have relief. As long as you have rain and relief, you’re going to end up with waterfalls,” he said.
Classic waterfalls, like Niagara Falls, are usually found in places where hard rock meets rock that isn’t as hard, Brady said. “A waterfall presents a contrast. There is a place that erodes quickly that runs into one that erodes less quickly.”
In the case of Niagara Falls, which is a cataract, hard dolostone and limestone can be found with more easily eroded sandstone and shale. The rushing of the Niagara river eventually cut through the soft rock but couldn’t cut as fast through the hard rock. The spectacular falls (which may be seven miles upstream from where they were 12,000 years ago, thanks to erosion) are the result.
In Western Massachusetts, Bash Bish Falls in Mount Washington is probably our Niagara, the most photographed and visited waterfall in the region.
“It’s an awesome fall,” Bushee said. “Bash Bish is pretty the way it splits around a boulder at the top. If you walk up the trail, it goes through a massive gorge upstream of the falls. You’ve got the whole view from the gorge out into New York.”
How does Bushee characterize this region’s falls?
Stan Freeman can be reached at sfreeman@repub.com