Taughannock Falls

Taughannock Falls State Park is located on the west side of Cayuga Lake, about 8 miles north of the city of Ithaca. In downtown Ithaca, at the junction of Route 96 / 34 and 89, turn west onto Route 89 North. Continue approximately 8 miles on Route 89 to the park – large parking areas are found on either side of the road. The trail to the base of Taughannock Falls leaves the western parking area and travels a gentle mile up the gorge to a viewpoint at the base of the falls. Please heed the warning signs and do not cross the barriers beyond the trail where indicated. The canyon rim view of the falls is found by continuing past the main parking lot for one-third of a mile, then turning left onto Taughannock Park Road, and continuing for another three-quarters of a mile to the upper parking area. The viewpoint is found down a flight of steps a few dozen yards from the parking lot.Taughannock Falls is among New York State’s most famous waterfalls. Situated on the western side of Cayuga Lake, Taughannock Creek forms the falls as it plunges a sheer 209 feet into a massive bowl-shaped amphitheater at the head of a nearly mile long gorge which features cliffs rising over 350 feet over the creek. Its significant height has long resulted in claims of Taughannock Falls holding the title of Tallest Waterfall in New York State. While our survey in May of 2018 verified its often-reported height is accurate (our measurement came in at 209 feet, the falls are usually cited as standing 215 feet tall – a discrepancy within an acceptable margin of error), Taughannock is bested by a handful of other waterfalls in multiple measures. If measuring just falls with a single sheer leap, then Inspiration Falls in Letchworth State Park is claimed to stand over 100 feet higher (and while Inspiration Falls is indeed a low volume, ephemeral waterfall, Taughannock Falls is likewise seasonal as well). Based on overall height, or accounting for non-vertical waterfalls, there are several other low volume waterfalls in Letchworth State Park which are in the 200-350 foot range, as well as Roaring Brook Falls, and T-Lake Falls in the Adirondacks, Kaaterskill Falls, and Santa Cruz Falls in the Catskill Mountains – all of which have drops between 200 and 300 feet and are either confirmed to be or are likely to be taller than Taughannock. The bedrock in the streambed both above and below the falls features rather unique cleave planes which result in strikingly symmetrical cracks in the rock, sometimes at very distinct 90 degree angles. The brink of Taughannock Falls features one such instance of this phenomena, where the creek has eroded and cleaved a sharp V-shaped notch in the streambed. Over the years numerous rock falls have occurred at the falls as this notch has broken apart and changed shape. Likewise, the cliffs surrounding the falls are quite unstable and often succumb to the forces of frost-wedging in the winter, resulting in semi-frequent rockfalls – which have on more than one occasion resulted in injury or death of visitors to the falls. One of the more interesting characteristics of Taughannock Falls is its tendency to run completely dry during the summer months, despite the creek upstream from the falls draining from a basin which covers an area of approximately 66 square miles. However, because of its large drainage basin, when summer rains do pass through, the stream does often come back to life, if even just temporarily. Precipitation that passes through from tropical storms that pass up the eastern seaboard will often result in significant volumes of rain, and in such cases Taughannock Creek can quite impressively go from dry to flood stage in a matter of hours. Though little stream flow data is available for Taughannock Creek specifically, a field measurement was made in September of 2004 with a flow of over 2,300 cubic feet per second in the creek as a result of the passing of the remnants of Hurricane Frances.