Over the Gorges and Through the Woods

In an effort to do all the summer things while 1) I have time and 2) the sun temporarily gets lost in Ithaca on its way to the Caribbean or Hawaii, my roommates and I spent a couple weekends in June hiking at Buttermilk Falls and Taughannock Falls. I’ve been to both multiple times, but I’ve never been one to pass up the opportunity to slog through mud, get bug bites, risk poison ivy, and sweat from places other than my palms and soles, all at the same time. During the summer, TCAT (the bus service) runs a route (the 22) that goes to some of the parks and state parks in and around Ithaca. This puts you at the mercy of the bus schedule, but I would rather have infrequent buses than no buses at all.

That said, for both trips we opted to catch the 22 at the Commons instead of taking a bus from Collegetown and transferring, partly because the weather’s too nice to not walk, and partly because last time I used Trip Planner to figure out a trip, they gave me one whole minute to transfer. Needless to say, the first bus was fifteen minutes late and the second bus was long gone by the time we finally made it to the transfer stop. So we took the bus and arrived unscathed at the state parks – and an extra perk: you don’t have to pay the vehicle entrance fee if the vehicle you’re entering the park on is the TCAT.

Buttermilk was pretty crowded, but worth it, unless you were looking for peace and quiet in nature, in which case, don’t go to a state park in the Finger Lakes region. Anywhere that’s hard to get to by car is a better choice. We had a rainy June (7.85 inches of rain; average is 5.06 inches), so the waterfalls actually had water falling down them, and the gorge was . . . gorges. After reaching the end of the Gorge Trail, we continued on the Bear Trail, had a snack, and went to see Lake Treman before heading back. We ended up being able to get a ride back to Collegetown, so we hung around the playground to play Frisbee (and try out some of the playground equipment . . . it wasn’t that crowded, we did not terrorize any children, and I am the size of an average 12 year old).

Overall, it was a nice (relatively) easy hike, even including the initial incline. Note that you are talking to the person who voluntarily takes seven flights of stairs at once to get to the top floor of Olin Library and walks to Wegmans for fun. I would still consider it a hike due to the elevation change and the dirt and stone path.

What I would not consider a hike is the Gorge Trail at Taughannock. If any random person can unload a stroller from the back of their SUV and casually roll their child down the path, I refuse to call that hiking. Because we were looking for something a little longer than the Gorge Trail, we took the Rim Trail at Taughannock. Besides being an actual hike, it’s also a lot less crowded than the Gorge Trail. You get some nice views you wouldn’t otherwise get, though one viewpoint is at a parking lot (but it’s scientifically proven that the view is 300% better if you walk there yourself).

We were doing a bit of a speedrun at Taughannock because we needed to get back into Ithaca by early afternoon so some of our group could go watch Inside Out, so after reaching the top of the trail, we looped around the other side of the gorge and returned to our starting point with fifteen minutes to spare before the bus. We went to see the lower falls, waited around a bit, and then the TCAT arrived to whisk us away back to the Commons. Operation Hike Ithaca, parts 1 and 2: success.