This week it had been storming a lot. When we noticed the falls in all the little creeks gushing twice as much water as usual, we decided we should go up and check out Taughannock falls. I saw those falls with my parents not long ago, and while the falls were very tall, the water passing over them wasn't much more than a trickle (though of course a "trickle" at that scale is probably thousands of gallons a minute). Sure enough, Toughannock was very very wet.
First we stopped at the overlook. You drive up to a parking lot with some informational placards and bulletin boards, and a little walled-off area at a great vantage point. When you approach it, suddenly you see through the trees to a head-on view of a gigantic round canyon and in the middle of it, the very narrow river that carved it, dropping 215 feet down the cliff.
We were lucky enough to not be rained on while we visited. When we got there, a thick white fog was filling the valley and sitting over the parking lot. I snapped a few minutes, and then after a short conversation with Teri, I looked up and noticed that the fog was almost gone.
We drove down to the trailhead below us, and walked toward the falls. The trail goes 3/4 of a mile and is big and flat and wide, suitable for a sunday stroll with your non-hiking-inclined relatives. On sunny weekends it's full of tourist-looking families in shorts and sunglasses. Today it was almost deserted, and the river was raging where two weeks ago people were walking with dogs on the dry parts of the riverbed.
When we reached the falls, it still wasn't raining, but man did we get wet. The enormous amount of water falling off the rocks threw up lots of water droplets. I would wipe off my lens on my shirt while waiting for the wind to stop blowing so strongly in my direction, then lift up the camera and try to take a picture before too many water droplets found the lens. By the time Teri and I left, we were soaked - and I was even wearing a raincoat. The last informational placard we read, after we had crossed the last bridge, told us that the bridge regularly washed out in strong storms.
