Picking up where the last post left off, I woke up to a dreary Friday morning, with luckily only one kid to get off to school. Jacob was off, but Carter had school, so I packed his lunch and got him out by 8:30. Despite taking the day off, my next step was hopping on my work computer to check my email, take care of a couple daily tasks, listen to our weekly staff update, and make sure nothing else needed to be taken care of while I was out for the day. Craig got home from the mechanic after an oil change before 9am, and after some last minute packing, I was off by shortly after 10am for my weekend adventure!
Where was I going? Well, my sweet godson's birthday was on November 3rd, and his party was on Halloween. Originally it had been scheduled for the day before, but due to family conflicts it had to change, and due to that and some conflicts on my end, I had to miss it. Not only didn't I want to be away from the house for Halloween (only so many years of trick-or-treating left!), but Craig had a mandatory work weekend in Canada and it just wouldn't have been possible to go without some serious help from my parents, and even then it might not have worked very well, especially with Halloween in the mix. So, I promised I'd find another weekend where I could visit. This one seemed to work since it was one of the few without much going on, but then Craig almost had to go to Canada again. Fortunately, one of Jacob's potential basketball teams scheduled tryouts, so Craig had an excuse to stay home, particularly since he'd just been there Tuesday. Fortunately he got the OK to do that, which cleared the way. I was excited to have something to break up my least-favorite three-week stretch of the year, as the excitement and anxiety for the holidays build up but time usually drags awaiting the time off. I took Friday off so I could meander my way down and have a couple adventures (not to mention get there in daylight), and off I went to Binghamton!
Since my family is generally not into nature (unless there's a playground involved, in Carter's case), I missed out on a couple opportunities when we went through the Ithaca area back in June. There are a couple state parks out that way, and based on what I had seen in passing, there were some fun, easy-ish hikes and some lovely waterfalls to be had. Because our June trip ended up a little weird and oddly stressful, I didn't push it, but vowed to myself that I would go back, possibly whenever I made it down to see Heather and Mason. Originally I figured I'd just pick a summer weekend, but then our summer schedules ended up a little squished. Then we ended up having a quick last-minute visit back in September anyway, and when the birthday party fell through and the rest of fall was crazy, it turned out my solo visit needed to wait a little longer. Once I picked a date, I crossed my fingers and said a few prayers that foliage and weather would cooperate. Earlier in the week, the weather wasn't looking promising. It was supposed to rain Thursday night and into Friday. As the week progressed, it seemed like the rain was going to end earlier than previously thought, at least in Rochester, so it seemed like a possibility it might be wet but doable by the time I got out to Ithaca around midday. The drive started out sunny at home, but turned mostly cloudy as I went east. When I got to my first destination, Taughannock Falls State Park, it seemed like it was starting to clear...and it turned out to be a perfect day for a couple fall hikes!
I had Googled the parks on my route endlessly, trying to figure out the easiest trails and access points. I knew my time would be limited and I am only equipped for the easiest of hikes (read: walks). My first stop was the Taughannock Falls Overlook, which had very easy access from the parking lot. The initial view was breathtaking!
The gorge was impressive, even if the foliage was really starting to fade.
I had to use my real camera to zoom in on the top of the falls. Such a pretty spot, even if the water was rather rough!
The trail was really nice. It headed into some wooded areas along the Taughannock Creek and wound around deep within high stone walls in spots. The foliage was clearly past peak, but there were some pretty spots.
I was shocked that I'd never really noticed pictures of this area before on the local hiking Facebook page I follow. While the waterfall gets some attention, I thought the gorge itself was something special to see.
At one point in the mile-long walk, I came across a group of women who were excitedly collecting leaves. Sure enough, there were giant leaves all over the ground. This one was bigger than my foot!
At the end of the trail was the bridge you could see from the overlook. It crossed the raging rapids and curved around to right near the waterfall.
The mist made it a little hard to take pictures up close, but it was really impressive.
Note how there are little side streams coming downhill at the beginning of the video.
I felt a bit damp and cold by the time I went back across the bridge, but had to take a selfie anyway!
I walked back along the same trail, enjoying the views and the blue sky. I really want to go back there when the water is low in the summer because there were a couple landmarks--namely a sign on a rock structure and two rock stacks that were completely surrounded by water--that looked like maybe they're usually more accessible than what the high water allowed this time. When I got back to the first waterfall near the parking lot, there was a gorgeous rainbow. Beyond it you can see those crazy, brave fishermen!
At this point I was ready for lunch but I was in an area with very few (if any) options. I didn't want to get way off course from my next stop and go all the way into Ithaca, though in retrospect I figured out it would have been barely out of my way. Oh, well. So I ate a granola bar, drank some water, and forged ahead to Robert H. Treman State Park. Admittedly I was a little more nervous about this hike because of the wet weather overnight and online posters saying that it was a bit more strenuous of a hike. I was hoping there was still a clear path and nothing would get too muddy or difficult to traverse.
Right off the bat, the water was roaring here, too.
I walked through a narrow gorge that reminded me a lot of Watkins Glen, with similar walls full of dripping shale. There were a number of stairs down at one point, and I walked past an older guy who was literally running up them in workout gear. Wow. Eventually I approached the top of the waterfall, and it turned out that this was a crazy, twisty one. Maybe that's why it's called Lucifer Falls? It was hard to get a good picture from this side of the trail. It started here with a smaller one...
...and kept cascading down in sections.
It's so much bigger than these pictures show. I kept walking (very carefully) down a bunch of wet wooden steps without railings, and finally got down to the very bottom. I should have known all those steps meant I had a heck of a hike ahead. There was a lovely bridge at the bottom, but oddly, right behind me in this picture was a thing blocking the path I just came from, saying the Gorge Trail was closed. Strange, since there was nothing blocking it up top! Regardless, I figured I'd take the Rim Trail back and hopefully get a better view of the falls from the other side.
It turned out that the Rim Trail stairs were even more plentiful. So many. Around every corner was another group of 20 steps, followed by another dozen, and so on. They just wound up the side of the gorge.
Eventually I was this high, but still had to go higher!
I had been looking all day for interesting fungi, and finally found this just off the path!
There was finally a good view of the entire falls from about 2/3 of the way up. Notice how high the gorge wall still goes on the left. I still had to go that much higher to head back to my car!
This was from another overlook hidden along the path closer to the end of the trail. I was really huffing and puffing by this point, and I feel like I should be in decent shape. I can't imagine doing this trail on a hot day. The balmy 53 degree shady day I had was plenty!
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| The area on the left is the top of the final cascade, and the right is all the way down in the gorge |
I was very relieved to finish the Rim Trail unscathed, since it was a little slippery from mud and fallen leaves in spots. It had been a lovely little hike, though, with the sun streaming through golden trees. Back at the parking lot was an old mill building (with equipment still intact) that housed the bathrooms. This waterfall was right outside it.
Although I was very hungry by this point, I still had one more stop to make, at the other end of the same park. I wanted to see the Lower Falls, which was just a 5-10 minute drive down the road. As it was heading a bit downhill, there were amazing views of the lake in the distance along the way! The falls were just a quick walk from the parking area.
Believe it or not, this can be used as a swimming area in the summer. It was hard to imagine that day with how strong the water was rushing. I was fascinated by the foam that collected along the shore near the base of the falls.
It was a neat little area, though. I can imagine it gets very busy when swimming is open.
The creek leading away from it, Enfield Creek, was considerably calmer and scenic along the path back to the car.
And with that, the nature part of my trip was done. I was so thrilled with the views and the experiences. I was so grateful the weather cooperated, and was in fact pretty perfect for the entire afternoon. I'll admit that I was a little nervous driving that day, worried about the post-rain conditions, hiking alone as a female who's not super great with the outdoors. What if I slipped? What if it was really remote and there was a creeper? Anxiety does funny things, but I knew deep down the risk was minimal because I try to be super careful, and sure enough, it was exactly what I needed!
The next step was getting a very late lunch. Well, that meant going into Ithaca, right to the area we frequented in June for most of our meals. At first I thought about just getting Taco Bell because I could get something I could eat while driving and continue on. But then I realized the only Taco Bell was the one we had the nightmarish experience with back in June. When I got to the parking lot, I curiously sat and watched the drive-thru line, and sure enough, it was once again long and barely moved! I was NOT going to get stuck in that mess again, and what I wanted was on the online-only menu, so I moved on. But there was very little else on the road past there and once I got going I didn't want to double back. I decided to go toward Cornell, since I had wanted to drive more around there anyway, and figured there had to be more fast food nearby. It's a college campus, right? Well...it turned out that the only easy place to go around there was on the other side of campus, a Burger King that was in the parking lot adjacent to the hotel we stayed at in June! It was so funny how I was accidentally retracing the steps from that trip! But since I was there, I did a couple laps of the Cornell campus, which was equally fascinating in the daylight. I can't get over how many buildings there are, how giant they are, how varied they are in style, and simply how impressive the campus is. It was so busy on a Friday afternoon, however, that I could barely get a picture. I did snap this one, which just shows a building I recognized from many, many years ago, when someone somehow put a giant pumpkin on its spire. No one even knew what it was initially or how it got there, and eventually it shriveled up and someone had to go up and grab it before it fell on people. You can read about the prank itself here, and the actual story behind how it got there here, which apparently took 20 years to come out. It happened back in the prime early days of webcams, and of course I watched the webcam they established to see when that crazy thing would fall off.
Someday I will go back to Cornell, find a place to park, and wander around that campus for hours. I know there's even more to see that I can't get to by car. Anyway, I got my BK on the way out of town--just a small burger and fries since it was approaching 3pm by then and dinner awaited--and took the rest of the drive to Binghamton, where my oldest friend and godson awaited! I'll save those adventures for another post!
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