From a modest bench above Taughannock Gorge, Cayuga Lake shifts from distant glimmer to presence—a quiet invitation to pause, breathe, and follow the water down.
From the south rim of Taughannock Gorge, Cayuga Lake appears like a distant strip of sapphire, framed today by a soft veil of hemlock and oak. The overlook here is modest—a fence, a bit of open sky—but someone wisely added a comfortable bench, an invitation to pause between gorge and lake, rock and water.
I stood in front of that bench, resting the camera body on the fence, fingers braced against the wood to steady the shot. This is not the grand, sweeping vista of a postcard. Instead, it is a quieter, more human vantage point, the way a person actually encounters the lake after walking the rim: emerging from the trees, breath easing, eyes adjusting to the light on water.
From here, the trail descends toward Cayuga’s shore, each turn bringing you lower and closer, trading the lofty perspective for the intimate sounds of waves and stone. In Distant Sapphire I and II, the lake was a glimpse—caught between branches, distant beyond the gorge. Now, in this “Bench View,” the water feels nearer, almost within reach, as though the landscape itself is drawing you gently down.
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Cayuga Lake Bench View
I’ve gathered the three photographs—Glimpse of Cayuga Lake, Gorge View with Oak Leaves, and this Cayuga Lake Bench View—into a small gallery, a progression of approach. Each frame is a step closer: from suggestion, to invitation, to the quiet promise of the bench, waiting for whoever needs to sit and look a little longer.
A gallery of the three Cayuga Lake photographs for comparison.
Glimpse of Cayuga LakeGorge View with Oak LeavesCayuga Lake Bench View
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Copyright 2025 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Cayuga Lake from the south rim of Taughannock Gorge, seen through a veil of hemlock with a carpet of fallen oak leaves, foreground. This is a companion to the previous post, both were handheld. For this the foreground was included to increase interest. For added stability, I rested the camera body on the fence bracketed with my fingers.
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Gorge View with Oak Leaves
A gallery of the two photographs for comparison.
Glimpse of Cayuga LakeGorge View with Oak Leaves
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Copyright 2025 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Perched above Taughannock Gorge, a moss-covered ledge and cascading falls reveal ancient stories—where Devonian seas once flowed and time’s layers whisper through stone and water.
The morning sun had only just breached the rim of the gorge, sending long slants of golden light across the forest floor. Walking the South Rim Trail of Taughannock Falls State Park, I came upon a quiet, unassuming spot—just a few paces off the path—where the forest seemed to pause in reverence. What greeted me was a small marvel of persistence and time.
There, rooted precariously atop a slab of brittle shale, was a tenacious shrub rising from a bed of moss, its spindly frame etched in sharp contrast to the soft, green sprawl beneath it. The moss had taken hold on a shelf of rock cantilevered over the gorge like a green tongue of earth defying gravity. Cracks traced the shale’s surface like veins, silent records of the forces that shaped this place—heat, ice, pressure, time. Together, the moss and the bush formed an improbable community, surviving against odds, bound together by the thin soil cradled in stone.
This ledge, suspended over the abyss, seemed less a part of the earth than a question it asked—how much life can cling to the edge before the edge itself gives way?
Beneath this living fragment, the gorge dropped away. Layers upon layers of shale revealed themselves, stacked like a collapsed library of time. Here, the Devonian Period lies exposed to wind and rain, and to those willing to pause and wonder. Each stratum holds the fossil whisper of ancient seas, where trilobites scuttled and coral reefs once stood. This gorge was not carved quickly. It was not born of a moment, but of many—countless raindrops, millennia of ice melt, the slow, sure work of water over stone.
From this natural balcony, I looked out and down to the gorge floor where the creek shaped the land with an artist’s patient hand. The falls, seen from above, no longer thundered—they danced. Spread like the folds of a fan, water curled over smooth stone in steps of white silk. From here, the cascade looked deliberate, choreographed—an elemental performance halfway between gravity and grace.
How many times had this water flowed, reshaped, receded? How often had it carved these grooves, smoothed those ridges, erased the footprints of what came before? Looking at the exposed rock, one could trace the signature of ancient glaciers, feel the memory of long-gone floods. It was humbling—this intersection of change and continuity.
Above it all, the trees stood still. Pine and oak, rooted well back from the edge, offered a kind of sentinel presence. Their shadows stretched long and angled, tracing the contours of both earth and memory. For a moment, I let go of all thought and simply listened—to the murmur of wind through leaves, the faint rush of water far below, and the silence that presses in when the land itself seems to be remembering.
This spot—so easily missed by a hurried hiker—offered a parable of resilience and impermanence. The moss did not grow with certainty, nor the shrub reach with confidence. They survived on the edge because they adapted. They made do with less. They took root where others could not. There was no security in that place, only presence. Only the now.
And isn’t that a lesson worth carrying?
We so often seek stability, firm ground, a clear path. Yet, some of the most beautiful things live just beyond comfort—on ledges, in cracks, in the margins of the known. To pause here was to acknowledge that life thrives not only in sheltered valleys but also at the edge of what seems possible.
As I stepped back onto the trail and continued along the South Rim, the image of that mossy outcrop stayed with me. I carried it in my thoughts like a talisman—proof that even on the brink, life finds a way. And that from above, the most chaotic falls can appear as ordered motion, as a flow toward something larger.
Later, when the sun climbed higher and the light lost its slant, I would look back on this moment not as a spectacular highlight but as something more intimate: a quiet encounter with nature’s subtle artistry, its layered truths, and its enduring invitation to look closely, feel deeply, and walk softly.
For here, above the gorge, at the edge of earth and time, even a whisper leaves a mark.
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A bench beside a cedar, unchanged through time, stirred memory and gratitude—reminding me that some places wait quietly, holding space until we find them again.
A lingering memory hovers over this spot. The soft crunch of gravel beneath my boots, the filtered light through pine and oak, the scent of warm stone and moss—all of it felt at once familiar and distant, like a half-remembered tune that returns in full when you hear the first few notes. I hadn’t thought about the simple bench until I turned the bend this summer day on the South Rim Trail.
It was still there. The same humble bench nestled beside a cedar, its weathered frame now bearing the patina of years. The tree remained slightly bowed as if in silent conversation with the bench it had embraced.. The space between them, still and shaded, seemed to invite reflection without demanding it.
Welcome Summertime Shade
I sat down, letting the moment settle around me. In the gorge below, water moved quietly through sculpted shale, the same layered gray that once caught my attention through a camera lens long packed away. From this overlook, the view had scarcely changed: stone and water, green clinging to cliff, sky rolling in above it all. My photograph captures it now just as it might have then—perhaps from the same angle. The gorge unfolding in a graceful arc, with trees perched impossibly along the sheer face.
It struck me, not as a grand revelation but with quiet certainty, that very few places in life offer such stillness. So much shifts in the world—landscapes erode, trails are rerouted, lives move forward. Yet here I was again, sitting in the same spot, as though the intervening decades had folded in on themselves.
The Why for the Bench
Back then, I had rested here out of curiosity, pausing to take in the view, enjoy a respite. Now, I sat with a deeper kind of stillness. The second photograph holds the space as I found it—quiet, dappled with shadow, edges softened by time. The fence beyond it remains, unchanged, a modest boundary between the trail and the deep gorge beyond.
I don’t remember what thoughts filled my mind that first time. But today, a kind of gentle gratitude rose instead. Gratitude for the bench, yes—but also for the path that led me here again, for the act of remembering, and for the rare gift of finding something familiar, something steady.
Left Behind or an Offering?
A final image frames just the bench, its surface worn smooth, its structure slightly leaning now. A single flower petal had fallen on the wood—a quiet grace note in the morning light. I stood and took that last photo as a way of holding the moment, though I knew no picture could fully capture what it meant to find something that had waited without fanfare.
As I turned and walked back along the rim, I felt lighter. Not because time had reversed or been conquered, but because it had been witnessed—and somehow, that was enough.
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Taughannock Falls, a majestic 215-foot waterfall, showcases nature’s beauty and power, intertwining geological history with vibrant ecosystems in New York.
Introduction Nestled in the heart of the Finger Lakes region of New York, Taughannock Falls stands as a testament to the delicate balance of power and beauty in nature. This iconic waterfall plunges 215 feet—one of the tallest single-drop waterfalls east of the Rocky Mountains—into a gorge whose story is written in stone. The park surrounding this natural wonder offers a symphony of sights, from towering cliffs to lush greenery, inviting visitors to explore its ancient secrets and vibrant life.
View of taughannock Falls from the South Rim Trail. Taughannock Falls New York State Park, Trumansburg, Tompkins County, Finger Lakes Region
A Story Written in Stone The rocks of Taughannock Falls tell a story that stretches back 380 million years to the Devonian Period, a time when the region was submerged beneath a shallow inland sea. Layer upon layer of shale, sandstone, and limestone formed as sediment settled to the ocean floor, preserving the fossils of marine life that once thrived here. These rocks have endured the passage of eons, but the gorge itself is a far more recent creation.
Limestone Steps on the South Rim Trail descend to the gorge floor.
It was the retreat of the mighty Laurentide Ice Sheet, approximately 10,000 years ago, that set the stage for Taughannock’s grandeur. As glaciers melted, torrents of water carved the U-shaped valleys that now cradle the Finger Lakes. Taughannock Creek, a tributary of Cayuga Lake, began its work, etching its path through ancient rock, sculpting the gorge we see today. In just 10,000 years—a fleeting moment in geological time—the relentless force of water carved its way 3/4 of a mile upstream, creating the awe-inspiring chasm and waterfall that continue to evolve even now.
Taughannock Creek carved this landscape over thousands of years.
The Gorge’s Living Tapestry Beyond its geological wonders, Taughannock Falls State Park bursts with life. Along the North and South Rim Trails, Eastern Hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis) stand tall, their evergreen branches weaving shadows that dance across stone stairways and forest floors. These silent sentinels are habitats for myriad creatures and protectors of the delicate ecosystem.
Wildflowers were planted by park staff at the Falls Overlook. The bright yellow of Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) and the vibrant purple of Coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) attract bees and butterflies, their nectar fueling the intricate web of life that thrives here. Along the trail, on the forest floor, mosses and ferns cling to rocks, softening the edges of the gorge with their verdant touch.
Cone FlowersCone Flowers gone to seedFrom a walk around Taughannock Falls State Park “Rim Trails” October 22nd, 2024. Trumansburg, Tompkins County, Finger Lakes Region, New York State.
The Fall’s Eternal Dance At the heart of the park is the waterfall itself, its roar both a hymn and a whisper of time’s passage. The view from the North Rim Trail reveals the waterfall framed by steep cliffs, their striations like pages in a book written by water, wind, and time. The plunge pool below, shimmering in sunlight, seems almost sacred—a place where the forces of nature meet in harmony.
Viewed from the North Rim Trail on a summer morning. Taughannock Falls New York State Park, Trumansburg, Tompkins County, Finger Lakes Region
Even as we marvel at its beauty, the falls are a reminder of the earth’s constant transformation. Each drop of water that cascades down the cliff face carries away tiny fragments of rock, continuing the slow, deliberate work of reshaping the land. What we witness today is but one moment in an ongoing process—a fleeting glimpse of a masterpiece in progress.
A Place of Wonder To stand at the edge of Taughannock Falls is to feel both small and connected. The cliffs, formed over hundreds of millions of years, whisper of ancient seas and forgotten worlds. The gorge, carved in the blink of an eye by geological standards, speaks to the power of water and time. And the vibrant life that fills the park reminds us of nature’s resilience and beauty.
As the sun filters through the trees, illuminating the mist that rises from the falls, it’s easy to believe that this place holds magic. Perhaps it’s in the way the water sparkles like diamonds in the sunlight or the way the breeze carries the scent of pine and earth. Or maybe it’s in the knowledge that here, in this park, we are witnesses to a story billions of years in the making.
Conclusion Taughannock Falls State Park is a place of wonder where geology, ecology, and history converge. It invites us to reflect on the immense forces that shape our world and to cherish the fleeting beauty of each moment. Whether you come to marvel at the towering waterfall, walk among the hemlocks, or simply stand in awe of the gorge, Taughannock Falls leaves an indelible mark on the heart—a reminder of nature’s power, resilience, and enduring grace.
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Copyright 2024 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Embark on a photographic journey with me, armed with a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV and a keen eye, as we navigate the challenges and beauty of Taughannock Falls. Experience the blending of history and art through my lens, capturing nature’s grandeur and the legacy of the land. Join me in this adventure.
Experience here the frozen beauty of Taughannock Falls in winter, the verdant revival of spring, the lush warmth of summer, and autumn’s fiery transformation. The falls symbolize the unending cycle of seasons.
Thank You for exploring with me the South Rim trail of Taughannock Falls State Park on this first day of Spring 2023.
Photographs with video from this walk, with nature sounds and music in 4K HD
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Here, before the epynmous creek flows over the falls, glacial outflow carved this deep canyon through relatively soft sedimentary rock. Distant Lake ViewThe place for rest and wonderLooking into the gorgeSouth Rim view of fallsTaughannock creek below the fallsRed Barn on Gorge Road, off South Rim rial.Perched on the north rim of the gorge, the Visitor Center for the Falls Overlook is visible before trees leaf out.On spring’s first day Taughannock Creek is full beneath the old railroad bridge, now a connector between South and North Rim Trails.The creek here plunges into the chasm below a former railroad bridge. Gorge from Railroad Bridge Walkway
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 