A while ago, while searching CalTopo for waterfalls that might not be noticed by most people yet, I made a discovery. Far upstream from where Fuller Brook enters the Westfield River, the brook dropped over a very tight set of contours. Interesting. Having wanted to check said place out, I conducted a quick Google search and found only a short YouTube video of the falls on a rainy day. However, the description said that they were 40 feet tall.
After visiting Devil's Den in nearby Williamsburg, we drove down MA 9 and then dropped south into the Worthington/Peru area from Windsor. We drove past the mediocre Falls in East Windsor, which isn't really a good destination unless you happen to be doing something in East Windsor (unlikely). Soon after crossing into Peru on MA 143, we turned down Strong Road, essentially an improved driveway. There is one house on the road, if you don't include the one the is about to fall down. After passing the house, there is a road closed sign, and a mound of dirt. If you have a high clearance vehicle, and you drive really slowly, you might just avoid bottoming out. Of course, this means driving past the road closed sign, which may or may not be okay with whoever put it there. If you are uncomfortable going over the mound (and thus down the closed road), parking here won't add too much more to the already short walk. Anyways, we drove down to the end of the drive-able road and parked here. I knew from maps that the falls would be just downstream from the road, so we continued down the road for a bit. We soon reached a spot that could be considered an intersection. There was a faint path on the left while the old road went right. Knowing that the falls would be on the left, we took a left. It was a mistake as the path faded away into nothing very quickly. We turned back onto the old road and followed it to the site of a former bridge. From here, we followed the brook downstream. We reached the top of the first drop and decided to cross. From the top of the ledge surrounding the falls, we could see that this was a fairly tall drop, and much more impressive than I had expected. By slowly picking our way down the right side of the falls, we made it to an awkward viewpoint immediately next to the ledge.
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| The awkward viewpoint |
To obtain a better view of the whole thing, we continued downstream to the bottom of the lowest drop. The view was much better here, as there were several rocks in the middle of the brook that could be used.
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| The entire waterfall |
The bottom falls here is shorter than the upper one, but has much more style. Strikingly similar to Trap Falls in Ashby, this drop is about 12-15 feet tall. It consists of three plunges about equal in height. The right plunge may be a bit shorter than the other two, another feature it shares with Trap Falls. We took some pictures real quick and then left, as the bugs were getting to be pretty annoying. On the way out, we noticed that there was a much simpler way to access the falls. Someone had constructed a "ladder staircase" up the side of the embankment. Where there wasn't a ladder, there were meticulously constructed rock steps. Whoever built these clearly cares a great deal about the falls. To reach these stairs, follow the old road to where it crosses the brook at the former bridge. Cross the brook somewhere in this area, and pick up the old road again on the other side. From here, follow the road until you reach a small clearing with a couple of log benches. Turn left and proceed down the staircase.
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