Not surprisingly, we're on our way to visit another New York State Park. I say that because this is our third time passing through the state of New York and on all seven of our previous stops we overnighted in a state park, today makes for Number 8. In case you were wondering, 72 of New York's 215 state parks have campgrounds, with a total of over 8500 campsites to choose from.
Why would we only visit state parks here in New York? Well, it's mostly because there are no Federal campgrounds in the state, other than two tiny campgrounds (9 sites each) in the Finger Lakes National Forest (the 2nd smallest in the U.S. at just 16,352 acres). One of the campgrounds is for equestrian users and the other for OHV users, with a size limit of 24'. We could probably squeeze into that one, but why be around all those noisy OHVs?
I should also mention there is one Group Campground in the forest, but you need between 8-40 people to reserve that one.
With no National Park Service campgrounds, and no Army Corp of Engineers campgrounds either, that eliminates all of the half price Federal campgrounds that we usually seek out. Also there are no free BLM campgrounds like you'll find all over the Western US.
That leaves us with the expensive, privately owned parks like KOA (which we always try to avoid) and our favorite, State Parks, to choose from. After 6½-years on the road we've spent 42.3% of our nights in State Parks. We can add all the Federal Parks together (NPS=16.6% + USFS=11% + ACoE=9.1%) for a total of 36.7% and it still doesn't match our State Park stats.
But enough of that! Let's talk about today's visit to Taughannock Falls State Park.
The main attractions here are the Falls and the beach on Cayuga Lake. However, we're here only to visit Taughannock Falls, a 215' plunge waterfall that is the highest single-drop waterfall east of the Rocky Mountains.
I know what you are all thinking! Wait just a minute, Niagara Falls is east of the Rocky Mountains! Yes it is, it's also 33' shorter!
So, with creditials like that, how could we not visit Taughannock Falls!
We got into the campsite by going the wrong way down the road, then backing in.
We can always do the same thing, go around the entire loop backwards, when it's time to leave.
First we drove UP to the Taughannock Falls Overlook parking lot, just ¾-mile UP the road from our campsite. I'm empasizing the word UP because it was a pretty steep grade UP to the parking lot.
That observation deck down by the base of the falls is where we're headed next.
We climbed back into ROVER to drive DOWN passed the campground and back out onto NY Highway 89. We need to drive the 1.1-miles over to the Taughannock Falls Gorge Trailhead, but first we need to check in at the Park Offices across the street for our campsite permit.
By checking in and obtaining our permit to hang from the rearview mirror we saved having to pay the $9 parking fee at the trailhead.
The Taughannock Falls Gorge Trail is only ¾-mile long, for a 1½-mile round trip hike. The trail is fairly level without much of an elevation change. It follows the south bank of Taughannock Creek as it flows out towards Cayuga Lake, one of New York's famous Finger Lakes.
but some people have been photographed "illegally" swimming in the pool.
Originally we had 5-nights reserved at this campground, but we found something better to do this weekend just 24-miles from here. So we shortened our stay to just 2-nights and still had the opportunity to experience Taughannock Falls today.
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