Please note:
There are now signs posted that limit access to the parking and trail areas during the school year from 7:30am to 3:30pm on school days. Please plan your visit accordingly.
Begin your exploration of this area at the listed Parking
coordinates. While here you can also find the Multi-cache,
GCP8VW, OLC Nature Walk1. I am listing the terrain as a 2.5.
However in the winter it is more like a 4. You may want to wear ice
cleats for safety on the trail. Follow the designated trails
approximately .25 miles to the Creamery Falls/Cave Trail branch and
proceed to the posted coordinates.
To log this Earthcache;
From the caves there is an easy walk down a constructed walkway to
the waterfalls. These falls have been a delight to artists,
photographers, bathers and fisherman for many years.
• Post a picture of your party holding your GPSr with the
caves in the background at or near the posted coordinates.
• Send me an email including the date of your visit, the
number in your party and an estimate of the height of the shale
escarpment to the north of the Creamery Falls. Please DO NOT post
any spoiler pictures of the falls or cliffs with individules which
would allow online estimates. Include any other unusual
observations or experiences you have while visiting the caves of
Otsego Creek.
The OLC is located on the site of an 18th century trail, which
became the road between Fort Plain and Cooperstown in the 19th
century. George Washington was said to have used the trail in 1783
while on route to Cherry Valley. Washington was searching for sites
to establish new grain mills to replace those that were badly
damaged by the British. Shortly thereafter, the valley was settled
by the Van Hornes who saw the magnificent potential power of the
many waterfalls which frequented the creek. As the village grew, so
did the dams, mills, and factories which produced, flour, cheese,
cigar boxes, caskets, distilled spirits and furniture.
Just one mile to the southwest of town the headwaters of the
Otsquago Creek spring from underground aquifers near the local fish
hatchery. (Visit
GCT4HW, NO FISHING) Water flow from these underground sources
is estimated at over 300 gallons per minute. Several small streams
also run through the trail system, which are part of the village of
Van Hornesville reservoir watershed.
The unusual geology of the Center has attracted visitors for years.
Within the Learning Center is a unique separation of limestone cave
formations on the south and a tall steep shale bank on the north,
which is monitored by several area geologists, colleges, and high
schools annually.
Growing up here I had many family adventures, school field trips
and even camping adventures with friends along the old road, and
spent many hours exploring the limestone caves, imagining local
legends such as Natty Bumppo, The Deerslayer, hiding in these caves
with his Indian friends Uncas and Chingachgook. The Otsquago Creek
has worn down limestone deposits for centuries. The limestone caves
near the Creamery Falls were depicted in a mural at the 1939
World’s Fair.
The northern and eastern boundary of the Appalachian Plateau
physiographic province is an escarpment of nearly flat-lying
sedimentary rocks that spans almost the entire width of New York
State. It is composed of Ordovician - Devonian carbonate and
siliciclastic rocks. The Otsquago Creek is in the surface drainage
divide between the east-flowing Mohawk and south-flowing
Susquehanna drainage systems. Also in this area are a number of
steep-sided gorges along the northern and eastern limits of the
escarpment formed by streams draining the plateau. The bedrock in
many places is covered with glacial deposits and recent soils. In
several places the youngest rock is Pleistocene-Holocene-aged
travertine. "Tufa" is the name most commonly used in this
region.
Tufa is a sedimentary rock, formed by the precipitation of
carbonate minerals from ambient temperature water bodies.
Geothermally heated hot-springs sometimes produce similar (but less
porous) carbonate deposits known as travertine. Tufa is sometimes
refered to as (meteogene) travertine. Large blocks of relict
travertine in the area are mostly porous with some laminated
crusts. They have the appearance of fossilized plants (moss and
algae) combined with mostly rounded lithic clasts that range in
size from clay to pebble. Modern deposits are generally dense if
forming in flowing water and porous if forming in the splash zone
or very turbulent water.
The history of exposed strata of this area spans hundreds of
millions of years, during which shallow marine seas alternately
advanced and retreated from the land surface. Marine and
continental sediments were deposited in multiple environments such
as deep ocean, shallow lagoon, beach, fluvial, lacustrine and
swamp. During extended periods of subaerial exposure to atmospheric
conditions, surface weathering processes dominated.
During the Pleistocene Epoch continental ice sheets periodically
covered the area. The last advance in this area (>14,000 yrs.
ago), the Wisconsinan ice sheet, was responsible for the glacial
deposits and resultant topography observed today. The glacial
deposits include poorly sorted sediments with low permeability.
Both the ice and the deposits it left were of varied thickness
depending, in part, on the topography of the land surface. There
are few bedrock exposures, because of the surface cover of
unconsolidated glacial deposits and soils, with the exception of a
nearly vertical wall of Ordovician Frankfort shales and siltstones
exposed in the Otsquago Creek gorge.
Some source material is derived from the Masters Thesis of Penny M.
Taylor for The Earth Sciences Department, State University of New
York College at Oneonta