Clark Reservation State Park

Clark Reservation State Park
A cliff with a small shelter at its top, viewed from across a lake. The leaves in the trees growing from the slopes are green, pink, purple, and red.
Glacier Lake and the cliff of the fossil waterfall in September
Clark Reservation State Park is located in New York
Clark Reservation State Park
Location of Clark Reservation State Park in New York State
LocationOnondaga County, New York, USA
Nearest citySyracuse, New York[1]
Coordinates42°59′49″N 76°05′35″W / 42.997°N 76.093°W / 42.997; -76.093
Created1928 (1928)
Visitors81,771 (in 2016)[2]
Websitehttps://parks.ny.gov/parks/126/details.aspx

Clark Reservation State Park is a state park in Onondaga County, New York. The park is in Jamesville, NY, in the Town of DeWitt, south of Syracuse. It was the site of a large waterfall formed by melting glacial ice at the end of the last Ice Age; the plunge basin at the base of the old falls is now a small lake. James Macfarlane described the area in 1879, "On approaching the lake from the turnpike on the south side, the tourist is startled at finding himself, without any notice, on the brink of a yawning gulf, precisely like that of the Niagara River below the Falls, and nearly as deep."[3] Clark Reservation is also noted for its many ferns; it harbors the largest population in the U.S. of American hart's tongue, which is so rare that it was declared endangered in the U.S. in 1989.[4]

The park is 377 acres (153 ha) in size, and logs over 160,000 visitors per year.[2] It encompasses the cliff, plunge basin and gorge of the ancient waterfall, and a number of secondary ravines and basins. Glacier Lake, which occupies the plunge basin of the former waterfall, is 6.2 acres (2.5 ha) in size and 52 feet (16 m) deep; it is a rare meromictic lake in which the deep waters don't mix annually with the surface waters.[5] The surrounding limestone cliffs are 180 feet (55 m) high. Hiking trails skirt a half-ring of cliffs surrounding the lake, as well as traversing the rugged limestone over which the old river flowed.

A Nature Center is operated by the Friends of Clark Reservation, a nonprofit organization staffed completely by volunteers. The Center has exhibits about the park's geology and natural history, and is open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. In addition to staffing the Center, the Friends group also organizes events and retains a naturalist each summer to guide hikes and create nature programming for the public in the park.[6] The park also offers fishing, hiking trails, picnic tables and pavilions, and a playground.

  1. ^ "Clark Reservation State Park", New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation
  2. ^ a b "State Park Annual Attendance Figures by Facility: Beginning 2003". Data.ny.gov. Retrieved February 16, 2016.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Macfarlane was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Currie was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Effler, S. W.; Wilcox, D. A.; Field, S. D. (1981). "Meromixis and stability at Green Lake, Jamesville, N.Y. Sept. 1977-Nov. 1978". Journal of Freshwater Ecology. 1 (2): 129–139. Bibcode:1981JFEco...1..129E. doi:10.1080/02705060.1981.9664025. The chemocline, below which the lake's waters are unmixed, is about 12.5 m below the surface. Only the bottom 4 m of depth are in the "monimolimnion", and the unmixed water amounts to only about 5% of the lake's volume. The depth of the chemocline can be compared to that for the lakes at nearby Green Lakes State Park, where the chemocline is 18 m below the surface.
  6. ^ "Friends of Clark Reservation State Park". Retrieved January 19, 2019.