This Is the Best and Most Secret Swimming Hole in New York State!

And the caves around it ain't too bad either!

There is a place in a very remote and rural part of Central New York that has a magical swimming hole deep in the forest that you need to explore. It is wonderful!

The Robert B. Woodruff Outdoor Learning Center is the fancy name for this incredible walk in the woods, deep into a shady glen, past ruins of another era, and ending at a waterfall and swimming hole surrounded by mysterious caves. You enter along a pathway found next to the parking lot and behind one of the smallest schools in NYS.

As you leave the sunlight at the entranceway, your path takes you deeper and deeper into the woods, past the relics of an industrious people 150 years ago. A plank road walkway takes you by ruins of an old creamery.

The 18th century trail then takes you by the remnants of an ancient saw mill.

And then a small factory that was once located here making cheese boxes…..

This is said to be the same trail that George Washington rode in 1783 while on his way to the settlement at Cherry Valley, NY.

Then you hear it before you see it. The ancient Otsquago Creek rushing to, and tumbling over, a series of small gorges.

The waterfalls are smallish. But none other compares to this charming setting to swim and explore the limestone caves that line the waterfall gorge. The water in the natural pool is cold and clear. That’s our kids enjoying the setting in this photo (below)!

The caves are mysterious, eerie, and great fun for the young ones to explore.

The Van Hornesville, NY school is one of the 10 smallest school districts in the state. And yet when it was built it was hailed as a state of the art miracle. It was financed by a famous millionaire who was born in this tiny map dot and is buried here.

Find out who he was and see him on the cover of TIME magazine as “Man of the Year.” Also, what is the connection to this tiny hamlet with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Nobel winner Marie Curie, and Pulitzer Prize winner Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.