The Indian Ladder Trail runs along the base of the cliff and was historically called the "Lower Bear Path." Here, you are halfway down the limestone cliff, where the Coeymans formation above meets the Manlius below. At the top of the Manlius is a soft layer of limestone that has eroded, forming a ledge in the cliff face. This indent in the cliff has been call the "Upper Bear Path." The soft layer is a limestone mudrock that is fine-grained and valued as a source of cement. Limestone is mined in quarries throughout the region for use in construction.
Geologists believe that the Helderberg Escarpment existed before the Pleistocene or glacial period, which began about 1.6 million years ago. Though many cliffs were created by glaciers, this cliff was actually protected by the ice, which could not move up the vertical rock wall. Only the ice above the escarpment was in motion, carving striations across the surface rock and dropping foreign rocks from other regions, known as glacial erratics. As the last ice sheet retreated about 10,000 years ago, meltwater flooded the valley, forming glacial Lake Albany, eventually the lake water was drained through the Hudson River.
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