Canal Lock #3 - Fulton, New York

Yes, it's Water Wednesday.
OMG, I came up with a name! :-)

Today's exploration came when I drove clear down to Clay, to go to Wegman's. I happened to pass this bridge in Fulton and saw a huge waterfall! I decided I would stop on the way back, if I could find a place to park and take a few photos of the area.

Well, I did and so I walked about half way across the bridge, to get this photo of the waterfall.

There is, as you can see in the second photo, Canal Lock #3. It is there to get the boat traffic around the massive change in elevation. On the Oswego Canal, this Lock has the most lift. A total of 27 feet of elevation change.

After this lock, there is not another, until lock #5 in Minetto. Remember, there is no Canal Lock #4, due to the fact that engineers designing the locks, found that they could take care of the entire 27 feet of elevation change, here at Lock #3, rather then split the amount between 2 locks. I am sure this saved them quite a bit of money, over the years.

Unfortunately for me, the day got worse, as I drove, with lots of gray clouds. I would have loved a bit of blue color in the sky and the water, but that doesn't come every day. As a matter of fact, the forecast calls for rain all week. Normal for this time of year.

It was still pretty cool to watch the water flowing down toward Lake Ontario.

Here is a Google Map overhead photo of the Lock and waterfall. 27 feet, quite a bit of change, on top of the 10 or so feet at Lock #2. I never realized that Fulton had that much elevation change going on.