Guidebook author falls in love with water

COPAKE FALLS, N.Y. — Standing on a boulder overlooking a turquoise pool beneath an 80-foot-tall cascade of water, Russell Dunn recounted the legend of Bash Bish Falls.

"An Indian maiden named Bash Bish, accused of being unfaithful, was strapped to a canoe and sent over the falls to her death," said Dunn. "If you look into the mist, you can see an image of the beautiful maiden as the splashing water murmurs her name."

That's one version of how the falls got its name. "The other is that it's onomatopoetic, suggestive of the bashing and bishing sound of falling water," he said.

Dunn can tell you plenty more about the spectacular waterfall 40 miles southeast of Albany. It was painted at least five times by Hudson River School painter John Frederick Kensett. In 1858, "The Great Blondin" walked a tightrope across the Bash Bish gorge, imitating his famous feats at Niagara Falls. Various inns came and went over the decades. Several people have fallen to their deaths as they climbed its steep cliffs.

A licensed guide, outdoors writer and retired medical social worker, Dunn has researched and visited hundreds of New York waterfalls in the course of writing a series of guidebooks. Black Dome Press recently published the fourth, "Mohawk Region Waterfall Guide." The previous guides cover the Adirondack, Catskill, and Hudson Valley regions.

Dunn has visited more than 320 waterfalls described in the books, returning to some of them several times to make certain his trail descriptions are clear and accurate. Usually, he is accompanied on his travels by his wife, Barbara Delaney, another licensed guide and co-author with Dunn of "Trails with Tales," which describes 30 hikes through history-rich areas of eastern New York and western Massachusetts.

Bash Bish Falls is located in Massachusetts, just over the border from New York, but one of the trails that leads to it, the Bash Bish Falls Trail, begins in Taconic State Park near the town of Copake Falls, N.Y.

Because Dunn wants his books to serve as historical texts as much as guides to pretty picnic spots, he includes extensive references in the back. The "Hudson Valley Waterfall Guide," for instance, has more than 70 pages devoted to footnotes, bibliography, and index.

Dunn and Delaney are often called upon by community groups to lead "history hikes" to destinations that are rich in cultural as well as natural history. Waterfalls are often steeped in history, since they provide energy for industry as well as inspiration for poets and painters.