The Finger Lakes region of New York covers over 9,000 square miles (approximately 20% of the state's size). Geneva is pretty close to being in the center of the region. This makes day trips going north, south, east or west fun and easy.
Friday we headed southeast towards the city of Ithaca, which is about an hours drive from Geneva. Ithaca is located on the south end of Cayuga Lake. At just under 39 miles, it is the longest of the Finger Lakes. The city of Ithaca has a population of just over 30,000 permanent residents. However, at this time of year it's population almost doubles as Cornell University (24,000 students) and Ithaca College (6,000 students) begin their fall semesters. While we were looking forward to seeing a bit of the city itself, our main interest was some of the state parks nearby.
Our research has shown that there are a lot of nice state parks in the Finger Lakes region. We're looking forward to seeing as many of them as we can during our time here. On this particular day we were able to check three of them off the list. All three of the state parks had waterfalls and gorges in common. We learned from experience that hiking in an area known for its glacier carved gorges was going to have plenty of elevation changes!
Our first stop of the day, and our last stop of the day was at the Taughannock Falls State Park. In the morning we visited the Taughannock Falls overlook. The overlook area is located across the road (Highway 89) from the main section of the park, which is located on the shore of Cayuga Lake. The overlook is free to visit and offers a great view of the 400-foot gorge and 215-foot waterfall that has been carved out over millions of years. Although the flow at this time of year is less than in the spring, there was still enough water flowing to give us an appreciation for its size and what mother nature can do with a few million years of varying elements to work with. Our route back to Geneva at the end of the day was going to pass back by Taughannock Falls State Park so we decided to save visiting the lakeside of the park until the end of the day.
Our second stop was Robert Treman State Park. There are two entrances to this state park (Lower Falls and Old Mill). We entered the park through the Lower Falls, which I think would be considered the main entrance. We ambitiously took off on the gorge side of the 4.3-mile Gorge and Rim Loop Trail. The trail was listed as a "moderate" trail, but with over 800 feet of elevation change, we both agreed after about a mile that it was a little more than moderate! Instead of continuing on, knowing that there were going to be other hikes throughout the day we turned around and headed back. After a picnic and some exploring of the swimming area, we drove to the Old Mill entrance and hiked down to Lucifer Falls. What goes up, must come down and what goes down, had to come up. By the end of our visit to Robert Treman State Park according to Beth's i-phone we had covered several miles and over thirty flights of stairs..........and there were more stairs ahead of us!
Our final state park for the day was Buttermilk Falls State Park. When we asked the young man at the entrance gate for a trail recommendation, he told us the most popular and scenic one was the Gorge Trail. He also told us that it had some stairs. He was right on all accounts! Although not overcrowded, there were lots of people on the trail. It was really scenic and there were stairs..........lots of them! Leaving the park, we had more than doubled our stair climbing count for the day. We were proud of our hiking accomplishments for the day and looking forward to seeing a bit of Ithica before heading back towards Geneva.
As far as timing goes, it wasn't exactly the best day to visit Ithaca. Much of what we wanted to see was in the Cornell University area. It just happened to be "move in day" for students. Nonetheless, it was somewhat entertaining as we drove around the edge of campus to see all these really smart young people who had been accepted to an Ivy League school, and their proud parents unloading their cars as they embark on their educational journey.
We enjoyed walking around the Cornell Botanic Gardens and driving through the very impressive arboretum. In spite of the fact that the temperature was approaching an unusually warm 90 degrees, it was still nice to see. Before leaving Ithica we did a short hike along the Cascadilla Gorge Trail which connects downtown Ithaca to the Cornell campus.
We rewarded our days efforts with a causal dinner at Glenwood Pines Restaurant, overlooking Cayuga Lake, before stopping briefly back at Taughannock Falls State Park. We were done with hiking for the day and pulled out the lawn chairs and relaxed a while along the shore before driving back to Geneva.
As we made our way back driving through farmlands and vineyards, we enjoyed another spectacular sunset. A great ending to a great day!
