Green Lakes State Park

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Green Lake, seen from its eastern shore. The lake is meromictic, which is quite rare and which accounts for its unusual blue-green color.
Green Lake, seen from its eastern shore. The lake is meromictic, which is quite rare and which accounts for its unusual blue-green color.
False-color satellite photograph of the central portion of Green Lakes State Park. The photograph shows the location of the two lakes, the major stands of old growth forest, and the trails that thread this section of the park. ©2003 TERRA: The Earth Renewal and Restoration Alliance.
False-color satellite photograph of the central portion of Green Lakes State Park. The photograph shows the location of the two lakes, the major stands of old growth forest, and the trails that thread this section of the park. ©2003 TERRA: The Earth Renewal and Restoration Alliance.

Green Lakes State Park is a New York State Park that is visited nearly a million times each year;[1] it is located just east of the city of Syracuse in upstate New York. The park is strikingly scenic, and has several other distinctions. It has a "masterpiece"[2] golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones very early in his career. Green Lake itself is perhaps the most studied "meromictic" lake in the world.[3] Finally, the park preserves the largest stand of old growth forest in Central New York.[4] Green Lakes State Park was named as one of the Top 100 Campgrounds in the nation in 2004.[5]

The park is centered on two small lakes, Green Lake and Round Lake, which have an unusual blue-green color. The lakes lie at the base of a gorge that is somewhat longer than a mile in length. The lakes and the gorge are remnants of the ice ages, and (as described below) exemplify some of the unusual geology of upstate New York. Round Lake was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1975 by the U.S. Interior Department.[6]

The park's area is about 1835 acres (741 hectares). Nearly half this area is old-growth forest that includes many very large specimens of tuliptrees, sugar maples, beech, basswood, hemlocks, and white cedars. One particularly impressive grove of trees, due west of Round Lake, is now called the Tuliptree Cathedral. Green Lakes State Park is likely the finest old growth forest in central New York, according to a website affiliated with the New York Old Growth Forest Association.[4]

Contents

[edit] History

Land for the park was initially acquired by the state in 1928. During the Depression, the New York State Department of Conservation (under the administration of then-governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and later the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed the parks' buildings, cabins, golf course and trails. During World War II, the cabins were used to house German prisoners of war.[7] The park increased to 1,835 acres with additional acquisitions in 1975, 1995 and 1996.

[edit] Camping and Recreation

There are 137 campsites in the Park, and also eight cabins for those who prefer a less rustic experience. There are several picnic shelters available for groups. At its eastern end, Green Lake has a sandy swimming beach and a boathouse with rowboat and paddleboat rentals. The park has both a Robert Trent Jones golf course (see below) and a "frisbee" golf course.

Round Lake is nearly in wilderness. There is an extensive network of hiking trails and about 10 miles of cross-country ski trails. Mary Notarthomas has written of these that "When walking on the lake trails, one is cradled between the rich, vibrant, almost alien blue-green waters on one side and thickly vegetated, steep wooded inclines on the other.."[8]

The Old Erie Canal State Historic Park, which is a 36-mile long walking and bicycling path, runs by the Green Lakes State Park entrance. The Erie Canal, which was abandoned in 1918, is still continuous within this State Historic Park. The Park extends from the Buttermilk Creek aqueduct in DeWitt to the Canal Village, which is near Rome.

[edit] The Golf Course

Green Lakes State Park has an 18-hole golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones in 1935.[9] The course was one of Trent Jones' earliest, and he operated it himself for several years. James Dobson has written of the course that "the original little masterpiece at Green Lakes, where Wendy and I and sometimes the other Dewsweepers slipped away to chase the game among the gloriously mature evergreens and admire the long view over a dark blue glacial lake, to the very foothills of the Adirondacks themselves, remained just about my favorite Trent Jones golf course of all."[2]

[edit] Geology

The gorge was formed towards the end of the last ice age - about 15,000 years ago - by an enormous river of water that no longer exists. The river originated in the melting, retreating ice sheet, and it flowed east through this channel on its way to the sea. The Niagara river gorge lying below Niagara Falls is an active example of this type of gorge formation. There are several other similar gorges in the same region as Green Lakes State Park, in particular at Clark Reservation, Smoky Hollow (1 mile south of Clark Reservation), and Pumpkin Hollow (about 10 miles west of Clark Reservation).[10] Geologists call these gorges and hollows "the Syracuse channels."[11]

Green Lake and Round Lake are the remnants of the "plunge pools" of enormous waterfalls that existed during this era. The lakes are fairly deep in comparison to their area. For example, Round Lake is 180 feet deep, and has a diameter of about 700 feet. This aspect contributes to the unusual, meromictic character of the lakes, which means that the mixing of surface and bottom waters in autumn and spring that is typical of most lakes doesn't occur for these two. Meromictic lakes are of considerable scientific interest because they have a high potential for evidence of ancient plant and animal life.

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Parks at a Turning Point: Restoring and Enhancing New York’s State Park System," reported issued by Parks and Trails New York, November, 2006.
  2. ^ a b Dodson, James (2001). The Dewsweepers: Seasons of Golf and Friendship (Dutton Adult), p. 181. ISBN 0-525-94582-2 .
  3. ^ Hilfinger, Martin F., Mullins, Henry T., Burnett, Adam, and Kirby, Matthew E. (2001). "A 2500 year sediment record from Fayetteville Green Lake, New York: evidence for anthropogenic impacts and historic isotope shift," Journal of Paleolimnology, Vol. 26, pp. 293-305.
  4. ^ a b "Green Lakes State Park: Old Growth Survey", from website of The Earth Renewal and Restoration Alliance (TERRA). Retreived December 10, 2006.
  5. ^ Noted at New York State Parks: Green Lakes State Park, official State of New York website for the park. Retrieved December 24, 2006.
  6. ^ "Round Lake" entry in registry of National Natural Landmarks. National Park Service website. Retrieved December 11, 2006.
  7. ^ Petty, Warren R. (1991). "Green Lake State Park" in People and Places: Fayetteville, Manlius, Minoa and Neighbors Volume II (Manlius Historical Society), pp. 127-144.
  8. ^ Notarthomas, Mary (2006). "Green Lakes on the Allegheny Plateau", from the "Travel Talk Radio Network" website. Retrieved January 18, 2007.
  9. ^ Cornish, Geoffery S. and Whitten, Ronald E. (1993). Online excerpt from The Architects of Golf (Harper-Collins) ISBN 0062700820; retrieved December 11, 2006.
  10. ^ Van Diver, Bradford B. (1980). Upstate New York: Geology Field Guide, (Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, Dubuque). ISBN 0-840-32214-3.
  11. ^ Allmendinger, R. W. (2005). Visualization from the west of the "Syracuse channels." Visualization of "Finger Lakes from the Northeast," looking back towards the Syracuse channels. Retrieved December 27, 2006.

[edit] External links

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