Paddling back through time: a journey to the Staghorn Cliffs on Skaneateles Lake

An ancient coral reef turned to stone — and a living warning for what is to come.

Chasing the past

For more than five years, the Staghorn Cliffs lingered on my list of places to explore — one of those paddling trips that never quite seemed to happen. There was always some reason to put it off: the weather, the wind, the timing. Then, at last, a day appeared that felt right. A beautiful September day, the air seemed warm enough for paddling and the promise of gentle winds for our journey up the lake.

Skaneateles Lake, carved by retreating glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age, sits at the easternmost edge of New York’s Finger Lakes. Its deep, spring-fed waters are famous for their clarity and provide drinking water to Syracuse and neighboring communities.

What are the Staghorn Cliffs?

Rising abruptly from the lake’s southwestern shore, the Staghorn Cliffs are more than just a striking wall of stone. They are the fossilized remains of an ancient coral reef, formed nearly 380 million years ago during the Devonian Period, when this region lay beneath a warm, shallow sea near the equator.

The cliffs’ weathered limestone still holds the shapes of horn corals, crinoids, and brachiopods — the skeletons of a vanished ocean life frozen in place. Today, they stand high above the clear waters of Skaneateles Lake, offering a rare glimpse into a deep geological time. Access to the Staghorn Cliffs is only possible by watercraft — you cannot hike or drive directly to them.

Launching into a quiet inlet

We launched from a quiet inlet at the southern end of Skaneateles Lake — water still, windless, enclosed by low trees and reeds. A great blue heron lifted off ahead of me, slow and deliberate. A train of turtles sunned themselves on a protruding log. A black snake slithered quickly near my canoe. For a while, all I heard were the sounds of nature. The solitude of the inlet soothed my mind.

Paddling toward time.
Not yet sure what waits in stone;
Sea-ghosts in the mind.

Paddling the inlet to the lake and approaching the lake.

Where the lake truly begins

The moment we slipped out of the inlet and approached the main body of the lake, everything changed. Powerboats were already moving up and down the lake — their wakes rolling in long slow waves toward us. Our Hornbeck canoes are known for their stability and handling choppy waves but you still need to be aware of the incoming waves.

At the same moment, the wind began to rise from the northwest — stronger than what was forecasted, pushing hard against our progress. We immediately angled toward the eastern shore, closing the distance as quickly as we could. From there, we continued north, staying tucked against the shoreline as much as possible.

Hornbeck Boats are ultra-light solo canoes, weighing less than 25 pounds yet remarkably stable and easy to handle — perfect for quiet-water paddling and backcountry portages.

Our Hornbeck canoes at the launch

If you are new here, welcome to Perspectives from a Canoe - a somewhat regular series of writing essays wherein I share my adventures while paddling. Along the way, I share my inner thoughts and ramblings about navigating the trails of water and of life.

Paddling hard into the wind

For a mile or so, we paddled against the wind — steady, persistent resistance, not dangerous but relentless enough that any conversation disappeared and every stroke became focused. It wasn’t the kind of heroic battle you tell stories about, just the kind that quietly wears on you.

Wind slowing my pace —
yet each stroke stirs the stillness,
change begins this way.

Finally, the wind died down a little bit and we took a breather along the shore, near a beach. I checked my GAIA digital map to see how far we had come. It appeared that we were only half way there - and maybe had another mile or so to go. We let the boats drift near the shoreline and took a moment to breathe, not entirely sure how much farther we had to go.

Getting closer to Staghorn Cliffs

A shepherd appeared: a man in the wooden row boat

We continued on and paddled past a larger home with an American flag out front. A man in a small wooden rowboat appeared just off the shore. He seemed unhurried. We pulled closer to him and asked him how far to the Staghorn Cliffs. He smiled and simply pointed and said - “right around the next bend,” and added - “you’re almost there.”

And just like that, the effort of the last mile shifted my mood. Finally, my wish to see the Staghorn Cliffs was coming true. For years I had imagined it — but I still wasn’t prepared for what it might feel like to touch a sea that no longer exists.

Silent cliffs above —
as if something long asleep
waits for me to speak.

Approaching the Staghorn Cliffs

Face to face with the past

Then, just as our shepherd in the rowboat proclaimed — we arrived at the cliffs.

Not all at once, not dramatic or towering — but unmistakably different. The cliffs emerged in a quiet profile, a sunlit gray in the angled sun, their surface broken into layered, living shapes. From the water, the cliffs looked weathered but alive in their texture. I couldn’t see any fossils yet — just the sense that this was not ordinary stone.

As we paddled closer, the lake suddenly held a different kind of silence. We eased our canoes closer - the water was a clear, blue-green color. So clear, that many of the fossils in the water were visible.

Our canoes beached on the shore of the Staghorn Cliffs. Fossils of the Staghorn coral beneath the water.

A coral reef survives as stone

Up close, the stones along the shoreline looked ordinary at first — rounded, sun-bleached, scattered like any lake debris. But then I began to notice their shapes. Not random. Not fractured. Curved — like seashells you’d find along an ocean beach. Some were ridged, others spiraled gently, as if they had once held soft living forms. I knelt to look closer, lifting a few from the wet stones. It was only then, in the texture of their patterns, that the truth began to surface. These were not just stones. They were something once alive.

Why are they called Staghorn?
These ancient corals take their name from their branching form — shaped like the antlers of a stag deer.

Various fossils of the Staghorn coral reef.

In a few hours of paddling, we traveled across 380 million years.

We stayed longer than planned — not exploring, but simply absorbing. I didn’t want to leave right away. The impulse was to stay — to let time slow even further, to listen to the silence that seemed older than the lake itself. I found myself studying the fossils not as geology, but as memory. Not trying to interpret it, just wanting to absorb it. To feel, as fully as possible, how this place once thrived before anything human had a name for the world.

Even when I finally stepped back into the canoe, I hesitated before paddling. I just wanted to let my boat drift for a while longer - watching the light shift across the limestone and listening to the sound of the blue-green water quietly hitting the side of the canoe.

Have you ever visited a place that made you feel small in the best possible way?

Eventually, we turned back — still aware that the wind could return at any moment. But instead of rising, the lake softened and seemed to open up for us. We had the lake - and our thoughts - entirely to ourselves. With the rhythm of each paddle stroke, it felt less like leaving and more like carrying something forward.

What was once the sea,
guides the paddle toward what’s next,
the past still steering me.

A silent paddle on the way home

Time did not feel linear at the Staghorn Cliffs. It did not feel like something moving past me, but something layered beneath me — present all at once. I could feel the past, solid under my hand, as real as the water and the fresh air. I tried to soak in the thought that time simply folds into the next, not gone, only transformed.

In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand, there is the story of the earth. - Rachel Carson

What natural place has shifted your understanding of time or history?

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