Two women were hurt when they tumbled down the Niagara Escarpment while hiking at Albion Falls.

The women - both in their 20s - were carried out on stretchers from near the base of the east Mountain falls by Hamilton firefighters and taken by ambulance to Hamilton General Hospital.

The accident happened around 2:30 p.m. Saturday while many people visited the falls on a beautiful summer day.

"They were hiking up and one of them slipped down about 60 feet," said Hamilton Paramedic Service Deputy Chief Doug Waugh. "She just had cuts and scrapes and that sort of thing, minor injuries. She kind of lost her footing and slipped down."

He didn't know how far the other woman fell, but said she slid down "a little bit" and hurt her back.

Waugh said the women were put on stretchers as a precaution. Firefighters brought the pair up the south side of the small gorge to emergency vehicles waiting at the intersection of Mountain Brow Boulevard, Mud Street and Arbour Road.

Amin Mir-Sajjadi, 45, and his 14-year-old son Ramtin watched emergency workers remove the women from the area at about 3 p.m. The Toronto visitors said they spoke to a couple who'd seen the women fall and then called 911. They said the couple described the one woman as "rolling down" the north side of the gorge.

Ramtin said when his family passed by, one woman was lying on the ground in pain, not moving. He said the other woman "could walk, but the ambulance took her away. The other one couldn't stand, couldn't walk."