Taughannock Falls, Ithaca, NY
It may not quite seem like it from this photo, but Taughannock Falls is actually a pretty impressive waterfall…if there is water flowing over the falls! This waterfall, located just north of Ithaca on the western side of Cayuga Lake, is the largest single drop waterfall east of the Rocky Mountains at 215 feet (33 feet taller than Niagara…but not nearly as wide). The gorge that the water has carved out is pretty cool, and when there is water gushing over the edge, it’s even cooler.
This photo was taken on a glacial geology trip with one of my classes at Lehigh, but the waterfall was much more impressive on a similar trip a couple years earlier with a class from Susquehanna (we actually tagged along with a group from Lehigh, and that is how I first became interested in going to Lehigh for grad school).
