My husband, adult son and i enjoyed our walk to the Taughahnnock Falls this morning. We are middle aged walkers, not hikers. We have been to all the major state parks within an hour of Ithaca 3-4 times. Taughannock is a very flat, 3/4 mile walk on a wide path, mostly in shade. There are sections where you can walk along the creek bed leading up to the Falls. There are also pretty little Falls close to the entrance where you can have a picnic or just relax. The Falls themselves drop over 200 feet, but it's a long, narrow waterfall off a cliff, so not as interesting as the formations in other waterfalls at Robert Treman or Watkins Glen (the best two state parks in the region, in my opinion). Easily 50% of park attendees were not wearing masks. We often pulled over and let people pass us. The lower level walkway is wide most of the way to the Falls, and it was not nearly as crowded as Watkins Glen or Robert Treman Parks this week. It normally costs $8/day to visit one or multiple NY state parks this year. The fee has been waived on weekdays through the end of October 2020 at Taughannock. There are porta potties in the lower level parking lot, but if you walk across the street, there is a lakefront park with bathrooms. There are also bathrooms, plus a staffed Visitor Center, at the Taughannock Falls Upper level Lookout (2+ miles up the road - drive there). At the Upper Level Outlook, you can see the Falls from the parking lot.

We enjoyed visiting Taughannock Falls State Park. We came to visit on Sunday morning, around 9:30AM in the morning. The small parking lot by the Falls trail head was already full, but there was plenty of parking on the other side of the street by the marina and the Cayuga lake, so we parked there. It is only about 5 minutes walk across the big lawn and across the road to the gorge trail head, which would take us to the actual falls. On the lake side of the park, there is also a clean bathroom. We hiked to the falls, the trail is listed as 3/4 mile. Since it was August, and there was not much rain lately, the Taughannock Creek was half dry and it was possible to walk on the stony bottom of the creek bed, which was fun. We saw many people doing it. The falls itself were impressive and tall, but the water stream was weak, again not unexpected for the middle of Summer. Overall we spent 2 hours in this park, and we enjoyed every minute. We also got ice cream by the concession stand in the marina, which was delicious.

We hiked to Lucifer Falls in Robert Treman State Park in the morning, swam at the lower falls, then drove to Taughannock Falls State Park. We were trying to also do Buttermilk Falls State Park in the same day, but that turned out to be wildly ambitious. We were camping at Robert Treman so our pass got us into the other parks for free, which is cool. On the lake side of the park is a boat launch area with a lot of geese and seagulls, picnic area, etc. When you cross the street you can hike back to the falls. The falls themselves pretty much did the hike too - they used to be about where the road is now and have eroded back to their current position over thousands of years. Pretty cool. the gorge trail goes along the creek, which has limestone shelves with puddle depressions called solution pits. it looks really good and the creek is limestone with puddles on one side and water on the other, so you can walk on it for part of the hike, which is fun. there was a place in the creek with dozens and dozens of rock cairns. we saw a lot in the ithaca region in general, but this is where we saw the most. that also looked pretty cool. they are controversial because making them disturbs habitat and some people prefer not to see human influence in nature, but they look cool nonetheless. they are hard to photograph well. the waterfall itself is lovely, a long straight drop. apparently it's taller (though much narrower) than niagara falls, which is hard to believe, but that's what they say. there is a lovely curve of gorge wall right before the falls as well. pretty easy hike, interesting terrain, well worth it.