The Amphitheater: Pulpit Falls

All the rocks and loose soils here that were dropped by a glacier crumbled down as the stream came through the gorge.

The glacier came down south from the north ten thousand years ago! It scraped the ground and when it stopped it left a pile of rock, sand and dirt. Then, the glacier retreated and filled up the hole that it had made with water, forming Cayuga Lake. The streams that flowed into the valley were hanging at the edges, since the glacier made the valley deep. That’s what made the waterfalls. The stream at Buttermilk flowed to the bottom of the lake, and the material that washed away from this spot helped form the land south of Cayuga Lake.Today this place is called Pulpit Falls.

That’s how Pulpit Falls was formed and that’s why the gorge is so wide.