Goat Island

As I mentioned a while ago we recently drove to Niagara Falls.  On the morning of September 13 we parked on Goat Island in the New York Niagara Falls State Park.  They must make a decent amount of money off tourists since they charge $10 a car for parking.  Needless to say we parked our car in a spot and left it there all day, taking our time to walk everywhere we wanted to see in the area around the falls.  And as I mentioned previously we were parked right next to state park police cars, so I felt like it was at least a safe spot to leave our car all day.  We did spot several sea gulls as we crossed the parking lot and Amy decided that it was her duty to chase them off.

After leaving the parking lot we saw an arch up ahead.  A plaque proclaimed that "This is the original arch entrance to the Adams Station, the world's first hydroelectric power plant."  It was relocated to the island in 1966 after the original station (opened 1895) was decommissioned.  The station was located fairly close by in the Niagara gorge.

Just on the other side of the arch was a statue of Nikola Tesla, to commemorate his contributions to the field of electric power generation.

Since things weren't quite open yet we decided to walk over to the mainland and see the rest of the park--but more about that later.  We returned to Goat Island later in the day.  One of the things we had been told not to miss was the Cave of the Winds tour, and it was pretty incredible, but again more about that later.  We also tried to go over to Luna Island, which separates Bridal Veil Falls from the rest of American Falls.

Sadly the smaller island was shut down due to construction.  I'm assuming that the work had started after the general tourist season ended on Labor Day.

We could see the construction work from elsewhere on Goat Island.  I'd definitely like to take a glimpse down at the falls from Luna Island sometime, it looks like you can get an excellent view.

We could also see the Canadian docks for their Maid of the Mist boat tour that takes passengers close to the base of the falls.  I've heard it is good, but we decided to pass it up this time and we ended up getting many good views of the falls from other locations (mainly in Canada).

Late in the day we also walked to the far side of Goat Island to get a close-up view of the American side of Horseshoe Falls at Terrapin Point.  The water flow over the falls is actually regulated due to hydroelectric plants upstream, by agreement between the US and Canada it cannot drop below a certain level (so the falls stay suitably impressive to tourists).

You can see the low path leading down to the overlook in this shot.  The side of the path has a series of steps while the other portion is smooth.

I assume that this portion of the edge was reinforced to stop the water from eroding under the observation platform.

You can look all the way down to the bottom from this vantage point.


You can just barely see the Canadian skyscrapers through the mist.

This is the center portion of the bend in Horseshoe Falls thanks to the zoom of my camera.

Here you can see the entire edge of the falls.


Looking upstream from the point you can see plenty of white water. I wouldn't want to go through these rapids with a raft or other boat though as the following drop would be a bit too exciting for me.

 On our way back to the car we saw this little squirrel who obligingly held still enough that I could take several pictures of him.

~Matt