“I could club you with this,” spoke my straight-faced friend, Minnow, hefting a sizeable log in her tiny hands. She claimed to be kidding … just making a playful comment after we had inched our way out onto a cliff to get a dramatic glimpse of Deckertown Falls. Yet only fifteen minutes later, I was standing on the edge of a similar cliff and heard, “Look out!!!” I jumped uphill, and less than a second later, the upper third of a tree crashed down exactly where I had been standing! Minnow had nudged the base of the dead tree and accidentally triggered the collapse. I could have been knocked senseless, rolled off the cliff, and plummeted fifty feet to the canyon floor! My companion looked wide-eyed, shocked and innocent, but I made a mental note to myself: maybe I should let her walk in front for a while, just to be on the safe side.

Despite having a friend who seemed to be unconsciously trying to kill me, I was thoroughly enjoying my time in the gorge-riddled hills of southern New York. We disregarded the advice in our hiking book and went beyond the documented waterfalls, discovering an enchanting series of pools and falls further up the canyon. That’s one thing I appreciate about the Northeastern states: their forests of hemlock and maple tend to hide and protect a lot of natural treasures.