Summer Roadie Notes 5: Taughannock Falls State Park

Sparkling lakes, breathtaking waterfalls and rolling pastoral land dominate the landscape of the Finger Lakes... this park features a 215-foot vertical waterfall...

The last stop on our summer roadie took Ann and I to the location suggested by our morning coffee cups(See Roadie Notes 4 below for clarification). The funny thing is, that between the fold-out map quoted above and the picture on the mug, we fully anticipated after a 3/4 mile walk to see rushing water... running water, or even a heavily trickling stream.

Like much in life, things are not always as advertised, but the trip was anything but a waste. As I've mentioned before it has been a very dry summer here in upstate New York and as a result the water table is significantly lower than "normal." So instead of marveling at "a breathtaking waterfall," we had the opportuniy to walk down the riverbed in which the water would be flowing were their H2O to flow. After making our way down the marked trail beside the dried-up waterway for about 1/4 of a mile, Ann and I shuffled down the series of shale steps onto the stone bed.

As we continued down the "trail" I was amazed by the dense silence that surrounded us, broken only occassionally by the small pieces of shale which were dislodged from high atop the gorge by the new growth root systems or birds flitting along the ridge. The shale would trickle down the length of the gorge until it rested at the top of the slowly building piles at the base. I walked up to one such pile and ran my hands through it, as if through water, albeit very, very hard "water" ;-)

The foliage along the waterbed did not necessarily reflect the drought like conditions of the falls. Tree sporuted from the sides of the gorge, the faces of the leaves directed toward the sky reaching for sun, and presumeably any moisture it could find.

All in all, there was much to process from this stop at the Taughannock, quite a bit of which I haven't even mentioned (but will briefly mention now)like the incredibly large numbers of people visiting the park today (yeh!) and among them, the many young children clearly enjoying running, touching and feeling the nature all around them.

It was wonderful to add to my own personal experiences with our New York State and national parks systems, (including hikes in Colorado, Nebraska and Virginia) this pleasant walk with my wife along the gorge...