FOCUS: ZOAR VALLEY
Beauty conceals nature's hazards
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By STEPHEN HAGENBUCH and ELMER PLOETZ
News Staff Reporters
8/8/2005
Bridget Mazierski dreads July 31 every year. It was on that date in 1988 that her brother, Brian Mahoney, and his best friend, David Hughes, fell to their deaths in Zoar Valley.
This year, she awoke July 31 to news reports that the day before, a young woman had died in a fall in Zoar.
"It saddens me to think that this keeps happening to others," Mazierski said. "When will it stop?"
That's a question law enforcement officials, area property owners and advocates for the forest itself would like answered. More important, what can be done about it?
It's a timely question with the state Department of Environmental Conservation's unit management plan for New York State's 2,297 acres in Zoar - including much of Cattaraugus Creek and its surrounding cliffs - expected to be up for public review this fall.
"Our two primary access points down into the Zoar Valley area, the parts that the state administers, harbor no real safety concerns," said Russell Biss, a DEC natural resources supervisor. "They both bring you down to the creek bottom level. But where many of the fatalities have occurred has been on private lands farther down Zoar Valley."
But for the thousands who visit annually, Zoar is a place where beautiful memories - not tragic ones - are forged.
Rudy Rote, a Gowanda native who now lives in Rockville, Md., visited the valley last week with his sons, Ryan, 15, and Devin, 10, who were lazily floating downstream in inner tubes.
"You can just come down here and explore, go wherever you want to," he said, recalling a "Tom Sawyer-esque" youth of hiking and snowmobiling in Zoar. "That's the beauty of it. There's no signs pointing every little thing out."
But that freedom comes with a risk. Zoar is, by nature, dangerous as well as beautiful.
Lauren Castanza, of East Amherst, was the latest victim when she fell off a cliff July 30 near the point where state land becomes private. Other people who died fell, drowned or were hit by objects falling or thrown from the cliffs.
Part of the problem is that Zoar is a wild area in a part of the world where nature has largely been domesticated. People from the city and suburbs aren't used to dealing with places where the pathways drop off into nothingness, shale cliffs can crumble under feet and floodwaters can turn a sandy campsite into an island in the middle of a raging torrent.
But they aren't always warned, either. Most of the signs in the areas around the cliffs simply identify the land as state-owned; there's no mention of cliffs.
Then there's the matter of where the state's land ends. Many of the more dangerous waterfalls are on the south branch of the Cattaraugus, beyond the state's property line.
But it's difficult to tell where those lines are. Adjoining property owners are responsible for putting up posted signs if they want to keep people off, but visitors frequently make those signs disappear almost as soon as they're nailed or stapled onto the trees.
Extreme dangers
Most people in the park one day last week had no idea some paths and areas around waterfalls were on private land.
Richard Shraven of Amherst, a longtime member of the Adirondack Mountain Club who has hiked along Zoar Valley's northern rim and gorge dozens of times, said, "Besides a sign for the Nature Conservancy, we haven't seen any signs ever."
The state has marked much of its property line by marking the trees with paint, but the paint is on the adjoining property owners' sides of the trees. In some places, visitors wouldn't necessarily know they were off state property until they returned onto it.
Zoar, with its 71/2 miles of canyon walls, is a place where knowledge is crucial. Capt. Kevin Caffery's first flight with the Erie County Sheriff Department's then-new Air 1 helicopter was into Zoar Valley after Mahoney and Hughes fell. He has returned many times since.
"The thing people don't realize about Zoar Valley is if they start walking around the top of the cliffs, start climbing up them or if they're there when the water is high, they're in extreme danger," he said.
"I've made rescues where people had spent the night on little islands, it's rained and the next thing you know there's a raging torrent and they're trapped on an island."
Posting rules, risks
While common sense is the usual suggestion for improved safety in the valley, sometimes it's not enough. Lauren Castanza was an experienced hiker, according to a family spokesman, and had been to Zoar dozens of times as well as hiking the Grand Canyon.
But better education could make a difference, many say.
The DEC's Biss said the draft management plan for Zoar, which is expected back from Albany for public hearings this fall, calls for informational kiosks there to let hikers know the rules and the risks of the valley.
Laurence Beahan, an executive committee member of the Adirondack Mountain Club, said that group favors turning Zoar into a state park.
"The public needs to be warned that it's dangerous there," he said, "and it needs to be told it's a vulnerable place that needs to be taken care of. I think we probably need more personnel, more rangers."
The region's six forest rangers are currently stretched across the state's woodlands in six counties, although they have combined with Cattaraugus County sheriff's deputies, DEC officers and New York State troopers to make sweeps in Zoar this summer. The most recent resulted in 33 trespassing charges last weekend.
Fred Parsell has lived at Zoar Valley since 1977. He says he remembers hearing the group Mahoney and Hughes were with when they went camping on state land that night. Overnight camping wasn't - and isn't - allowed in Zoar, and he considered calling police. But he and his wife decided not to because they didn't want to antagonize a group of teenagers.
The next morning, he awoke to the strobe of a flashing light in their bedroom window. A police officer told him two boys had gone over the cliff.
Ten years later, he says, a young couple from Fredonia State College was probably saved when the two followed the sound of his dog's barking after they got lost after dark near the cliffs.
"They went in before dark, at the same place the kids went over," he said. "They came to go for a walk, and then they got disoriented. And there's something about humans, they always seem to want to circle to the right."
Along the road near Parsell's house, there are signs that say, "attention small game hunters," "dog owners - restricted area," "state land" and "state forest." But there is nothing warning of the potential hazards nearby.
"There probably should be more signage for these young people," he said. "They see "state land,' they don't see danger signs. They don't see cliffs. And in some places, it drops sheer down."
"Experienced hikers know not to go near the edge at all, at least not all the way," said Shraven, the hiker. "The ground can fall away from you, you can lose your balance. A lot of things could go wrong."
"The spot where people have died could have signs," said Joyce Bol, of Snyder, who was hiking with Shraven. "We could certainly have a few signs to warn us, something that indicates the ground is unstable."
Stay on the state's lands
Steve McCabe, who owns 1,300 feet of creek bank along the south branch of the Cattaraugus Creek, also would like to see an end to guides that point the way beyond state property.
"It's strange in that they say it's private property, then they offer detailed directions on how to circumvent that and give detailed directions to get to places," he said. "Sadly, it has become a life and death issue. The irresponsibility of that just galls me."
Scott Ensminger, whose map of Zoar Valley waterfalls made its way to the Internet, said he long ago stopped distributing it and that he would be ordering others who have posted it to take it off their Web sites.
Ensminger, who runs the "Waterfalls of Western New York Survey" Web site, said he now directs people only to state and county properties in the falls quests.
Whatever the results when the Zoar plan is finalized, it won't replace a dose of simple caution when it comes to preventing tragedies.
"Nature will take its toll. You just have to respect nature," Rote said.
Reply With Quote