New York Waterfalls

Wednesday morning, we checked out of the hotel and headed to the trailhead for Kaaterskill Wild Forest at the Laurel House Road parking.  All parking along the highway is blocked off and strictly prohibited for safety reasons.  We picked up the Kaaterskill Falls Trail and went a short ways to the first split and turned right to head down to the overlook for Kaaterskill Falls.

There was a nice view of the upper drop of the waterfall as well as looking down the gorge.

From here, we got back on the main trail and crossed a footbridge over Spruce Creek above the falls.  There was a lot of wild bergamot blooming.

The Kaaterskill Falls Trail continued down to the base of the lower drop.

Both sections of the 230-foot waterfall were visible from here, one of New York's highest waterfalls.

I scrambled up the rocks for a closer view of the lower drop, but the upper drop was not visible from here.

On the hike back up, a spur went our to the base of the upper drop, but the spray was too great to get a picture.  I did get a shot looking down the lower drop.

Then we continued back up to the top.  On the hike back, we spotted some Indian pipe growing along the trail.

We finished our hike back up at the parking lot and took off.

From here, we headed west to the Finger Lakes region near Ithaca and drove to Taughannock Falls State Park.  First, we stopped near the visitor center for a view of Taughannock Falls from the overlook.

After a couple pictures, we parked at the trailhead for Gorge Trail.  Right at the start of the trail, we passed Lower Taughannock Falls.

Although only 20 feet, it was very scenic and photogenic.

The trail through the gorge was quite beautiful with many small drops along Taughannock Creek.

There were a few spots to get out in the dry sections of the creek.

Although a popular area, there weren't any huge crowds along the trail.

There was a lot of shale in the gorge.

And we saw a fair number of summer wildflowers blooming.

Great blue lobelia and New England aster were very pretty.

The creek got a little more rugged as we approached the end.

The trail ended at a nice overlook for the spectacular Taughannock Falls.

Although the overlook was crowded, we spent a while here enjoying the view of the water crashing down more than 200 feet.

The gorge walls around the falls made an incredible amphitheater like setting.

But it was rather crowded so we got some pictures and started heading back.

Before leaving the park, we made one more stop at the top of the gorge.  Upper Taughannock Falls was just downstream of the bridge.

The only view of the waterfall, however, was from the footbridge on North Rim Trail.  There is definitely no reasonable way down into the gorge.

The view looking downstream from the bridge was nice as well.

After some pictures, we took off and headed to Ithaca.

The city of Ithaca has quite a number of waterfalls right in downtown.  We first parked at Ithaca Falls Park and made the short walk over to the fabulous Ithaca Falls.

At 150 feet tall and 175 feet wide, it was truly impressive.

Although not raining, the weather was a little dreary so surprisingly few people around.  We took advantage and hung out for a while.

Although there weren't many people, we did see a few birds.  A couple great egrets were wading in the water below the falls, looking for fish.

And we spotted a great blue heron as well on the hike back out.

Next we headed to the parking for Fall Creek Gorge at Cornell along Fall Creek Drive.  Surprisingly, we had no trouble finding parking on a the university campus.  We crossed back over Fall Creek on a pedestrian bridge.  Rocky Falls was just upstream next to the hydroelectric plant.

Horseshoe Falls was directly below the bridge.  There used to be a trail to the base, but it was closed and I think the closure is permanent, so this was the best view we could get.

Across the bridge, we followed Rim Trail down to Stewart Avenue and crossed the bridge for a view of Forest Falls.

This was the only one of the three we could get a very good view of.

I ran across the street for a view looking over the top of Ithaca Falls towards Cayuga Lake.

Then we hiked back to the car and made one more stop at the Martin Tang Welcome Center on campus.  We first walked across Thurston Avenue to an overlook of Triphammer Falls.

It was another really nice waterfall on campus.  We then walked around the Welcome Center for a view of the upper section.

There was a cool view looking down the gorge.

The upper section has altered by the construction of the dam, but was still really scenic.

Then we headed back to the car.

From here, we checked into the Rodeway Inn.  It didn't look too nice from the outside, but the room was clean and spacious and pretty nice.  We had pizza for dinner at Ithaca Beer Company and then went to bed.