The Thawed Waterfall Issue
It's already a lived tradition, so I'm making it official!
Each April, millions of gallons of snowmelt and rain churn through the once-frozen New England landscape—turning tiny creeks into muscular monsters, whisking tree branches away like feathers, and cranking up the volume dial on waterfalls great and small. Watching these beauties re-liquify is *the* superlative event of springtime in the northeast. I don’t care what any outdoor influencers with massive platforms say about “the mountains calling” right now. The waterfalls are waking up and unlike our peaks, which can get surprisingly treacherous during spring (as we covered last weekend), most waterfalls can be found and witnessed with only a modest risk of overexposure.
The annual thawing of our cascades is such an ecstatic lived tradition for many of us New Englanders that Mind The Moss has always acknowledged this seasonal event; usually in a roundabout way. But at some point, lived traditions demand formalization. And the other morning, while leafing through the oldest, dustiest, and mossiest of the newsletter archives, I realized that Mind The Moss has almost zero dedicated “issues” centered around a major outdoor happening. In 2021, when the newletter was a baby, I (reluctantly) put out a Leaf Peeping Issue, knowing that the allure of all those red and golden maple leaves was far too strong to resist. But I haven’t published another Leaf Peeping Issue since then. So I believe that it’s time to officialize this current moment.
From now on, Mind The Moss will feature a special Thawed Waterfalls Issue. Today, you’re receiving the 2025 version—which will focus on cascades of note in four out of six states in New England. (Next time, we’ll shake things up with a different selection.) You could spend a lifetime squelching through the country to watch these waterfalls being resurrected by rain and warming air. So, I’d like to introduce you to not just eight spattering specimens here in the northeast, but also a bonus waterfall located beyond New England. For those of you whose cascade lust can’t be contained by one region.
RHODE ISLAND
Little Rhody will always have a place in my heart for its BIG character. I mean, the fact that Rhode Islanders eat strips of sauce-only pizza and call it “party pizza” is already a God-level flex. But one very rare instance of the “Little” in Little Rhody resonating is the quantity and scale of waterfalls in the Ocean State. Simply put, there not a lot of them, and you have to get somewhat agnostic about what qualifies as a waterfall in Rhode Island. Take the Round Top Brook Management Area in Burrillville, tucked away in the wooded northwest corner of the state. The draw here for the occasional visitors is a little fishing pond surrounded by reedy wetland plants. But near the fishing area, you can find a manmade drainage that presents as a wall of falling waters. And thanks to a little network of trails on the property, you can squeeze in some muddy sauntering too and find your way back to the cascade for a labored “We meet again…” moment.
But if getting in some squishy mid-spring steps is your real goal—with the waterfalls serving as more of a bonus—then I recommend getting yourself over to the Barden Reservoir loop trail in the town of Foster. The spot where the water leaves the rez is another built cascade, on a bigger scale than what you’ll find at Round Top. But the circular journey around the water is what glowering April afternoons were made for.
CONNECTICUT
For anyone who scoffs at the idea that the Nutmeg State is the neglected child of the New England brood, consider that back in 2010, our regional destination marketing organization temporarily removed Connecticut from its online map. While the state had failed to pay its dues to the organization, the fact that Destination New England responded by wiping Connecticut off of the regional map felt like a Freudian move; a long-suppressed impulse creeping to the surface. But the notion that Connecticut is merely a suburban extension of New York grossly understates the beauty lurking in the state’s woodlands and ravines. Indian Well Falls, one of the most elegant plunge cascades I’ve ever seen, is hidden in a gorge on the west banks of the Housatonic River, near the post-industrial sprawl of Shelton. And most travelers drive right past the short n’ scrambly access trail to these elegant little falls. Connecticut Exclusion!
Or it could be that some of these passerbys are on their way to Enders State Forest northwest of Hartford, where a more in-your-face series of heavenly waterfalls spill through a misty ravine. While Enders Falls doesn’t have the diamond in the dirt charm of Indian Well Falls—in the way that the big, reverby guitar loops on U2’s “Where The Streets Have No Name” lack the raw minimalism of “Exit”—it’s a stunner nonetheless.
MASSACHUSETTS
Whenever a place or creature goes deliberately unnamed by the people who look after it, I’m intrigued. If I’m over at somebody’s house for dinner and the host—clearing the leftover hors d’oeuvres from the living room—suddenly goes “Looks like the dog at the rest of the cheese,” I have to wonder what’s going on there. Same goes for any known and beloved cascade that’s just called “The Cascade.” There are actually two of these waterfalls in Massachusetts. One of them is located in the grittier easternmost end of the Middlesex Fells Reservation in Malden. It’s a surprisingly robust waterfall, spilling down black rock ledges and at its most voluminous each spring. It’s the only cascade in The Fells that feels like a waterfall in the classic sense, and you can actually walk there from Oak Grove Station—the end of the MBTA Orange Line—in about 1.4 miles!
The other cascade—the bigger of the two—is a thundering landmark in the forest of North Adams. The 2.1-mile out-and-back trail to these falls actually begins by a local school, with the initial trail signs nailed to utility poles before the pavement changes over to dirt, mud, and stone. Since the later stages of the trail are pretty much the streambed fed by The Cascades, you’ll want waterproof boots for this one and you might consider saving the walk for the balmier weeks of spring. But once you gaze upon the titular Cascades roaring away in their gorge, you can understand why this waterfall is a special place for North Adams residents. And suddenly, the lack of a proper name makes sense. If you live near a big ass waterfall, would you really call it “North Adams Falls” or whatever? I mean…what other big ass local falls are there?
VERMONT
Ah, Vermont. A land of abundance when it comes to waterfalls, trails, and mud season hiking restrictions. Because Vermonters are mindful of their backcountry trails making it through the sloppiest season without suffering damage (which can happen when a lot of people are clomping across soft, muddy trails), a lot of the state’s best waterfall trails are closed in April and early May. But this doesn’t have to be a disappointment. It can be a license to enjoy a more decadent outing—the town waterfall walk. There are few better places for trying this out than Middlebury, where the frothing, titanic mass of Middlebury Falls thunders through the heart of town. Amble down Main Street and as it crosses above Otter Creek on an old bridge, you’ll see the falls exploding through the archway on the west side of the bridge. Then continue walking down Main Street, pop into Two Brothers Tavern for a Heady Topper, and return to the falls for Round 2.
Now if you finish your walk and think, “Hey, I could get used to this,” you can level up immediately by driving over to nearby Vergennes, walking half a mile from the parking lot for an aerospace systems compan to the promisingly named Vergennes Falls Park and looking across the water. You’ll see a trilogy of cascades called Vergennes Falls, which are downstream of Middlebury along Otter Creek. (It’s a real shame that Otter Creek Brewing closed their doors in 2022—that would have been the natural finale.)
THE 2025 BONUS WATERFALL
Some things you only experience once and yet, you hold onto that memory like an ice cream cone that’s melting all over your hands on a broiled July afternoon. McArthur-Burney Falls burned itself into my brain back in early fall of 2019, when I was visiting the Shasta-Redding region of Northern California to look at…well…waterfalls. Volcanic activity in this area, which occurred millions of years ago, created lava tubes and other passages through the earth that were later flooded by snowmelt and spring rain. The results are some of the most behemoth-like waterfalls in North America, and the big fish in the pool is easily McArthur-Burney Falls. Dubbed “The Eighth Wonder Of The World” by Teddy Roosevelt and spilling down an immense basalt cliff face, the falls are roughly 129-feet tall and the plunges are so voluminous that the spray can leave you soaking wet after a storm, even if you’re simply observing the falls from the trail that descends to its base and follows its waters into the woods before looping back to the cascade. That’s partly why I chose McArthur-Burney Falls for the 2025 Thawed Waterfall Issue. Spring is when the Shasta-Redding area gets a lot of its limited rain.
I stood at the base of McArthur-Burney Falls at the end of a very dry summer that saw multiple wildfires in the region and this cascade still left me speechless. So imagine how insanely loud, powerful, and drenching the falls might be in springtime, as the rain mixes with melting snow from the surrounding peaks! In the event that you make it to the Eighth Wonder Of The World, please let me know how it was. And maybe take a fisherman style rain suit. The kind that’s ubiquitous to commercial scalloping trips.
ADVENTURE RESOURCES
Round Top fishing area cascade
0.5-ish mile to reach the cascade, with potential for a longer trail loop
50 feet of elevation gain
CLICK HERE for a Google Map to the parking area
NOTE: Bring bright orange clothing if visiting between now and late May!
Barden Reservoir cascade
4.5 miles loop
410 feet of elevation gain
CLICK HERE for a trail map
Indian Well Falls
1.6 miles loop
367 feet of elevation gain
CLICK HERE for a trail map
Enders Falls
0.9 mile out-and-back
111 feet of elevation gain
CLICK HERE for a trail map
The Cascade (Middlesex Fells)
2.8 miles out-and-back…or improvise a longer loop hike on nearby trails!
266 feet of elevation gain
CLICK HERE for a trail map
The Cascades (North Adams)
2.1 miles out-and-back
265 feet of elevation gain
CLICK HERE for a trail map
Middlebury Falls
CLICK HERE for a Google Map pin for the falls
Vergennes Falls
1 mile out-and-back
45 feet of elevation gain
CLICK HERE for a trail map
McArthur-Burney Falls
1.1 miles loop
167 feet of elevation gain
CLICK HERE for a trail map
Loved this. Another theme issue could be spring ephemerals. Or frog awakenings. My two favorite spring events.
While readers will comment on your waterfall selection, I have to say that I always love a mention of RI's pizza strips/bakery-style pizza! LOL While many out-of-staters compare it to eating a sponge with tomato sauce on it, I have very fond memories of birthdays, holidays, and family celebrations where a big box of this "treat" was eagerly devoured. :-)