Dates: 1/28/22 - 1/30/22
Lodging: Airbnb in Ithaca
Places: Six Mile Creek Winery, Hosmer Winery, Thirsty Owl Wine Company, Watkins Glen Harbor Hotel, Aurora Brewing, Red's Place
Trails: Buttermilk Falls State Park, Taughonnock Falls State Park, Ithaca Falls
In January we decided to head to one of our favorite places to continuously visit - the Finger Lakes!
One of the reasons were went on this trip was for the Watkins Glen Harbor Hotel Fire and Ice event. This was an incredible experience and I highly recommend it. We had stayed at this hotel for our mini moon back in 2019 and it's a beautiful hotel right on Seneca Lake. For the Fire and Ice event, your $35 ticket, (plus fees), gives you access to the ice bar, station style food, and tastings from local breweries and wineries. There was more than enough food to give us our dinner for the night, lots of tastings to enjoy and there are cocktail drinks for purchase.
We arrived later Friday afternoon to our cute Airbnb in Ithaca. Much of our time has been spent on Seneca Lake previously so this trip our focus was on Cayuga lake for something different. Our Airbnb was the basement apartment of a house, was in a cute neighborhood above Ithaca and was near a cute park which was great for our dogs. We love any Airbnb and that is super dog friendly like this one.
We spent Friday night at the Fire and Ice Event. The next morning we planned for several waterfall hikes around the Ithaca Area: Taughannock Falls State Park, Buttermilk Falls State Park and Ithaca Falls.
Taughannock Falls State Park
There are two main parts to see the waterfall in this state park. You can walk the trail through the gorge to the base of the falls, or you drive to the overlook above the falls. We started with the gorge walk to the base of the falls. The snow and ice on the trail make this absolutely magical.
Right near the parking area you'll see some mini falls.
The trail is wide and flat and follows the river all through the gorge.
It's only .9 miles to the base of the falls. You can view the falls from the bridge over the water or on the other side where you can get a little bit closer to the falls.
As this day was absolutely frigid we pretty much had the falls to ourselves.
After exploring the base of the falls we drove up to the top of the falls. As is the case in many areas, in winter many trails are closed. For this reason we couldn't access the main overlook but we could still see the falls just above it.
Buttermilk Falls State Park
This was an even more accessible waterfall as the waterfall is pretty much next to the parking lot. Again, we had this space to ourselves but unfortunately the gorge trail was closed. We were still able to get a couple of pictures and the waterfall is so snowy and frozen it practically blended into it's surroundings!
Ithaca Falls
As it sounds, this waterfall is right in the town of Ithaca. In fact we parked in an auxiliary lot of a school right across the street from the waterfall. There is a short little trail to the waterfall. This was extremely icy and it was obvious the water from the falls had flooded onto the trail and frozen. Extreme caution was needed here because the ice was not completely frozen in the areas with strong water flow and it was difficult to see where the trail ended and the water began. There are also neat warning signs telling you of be aware of falling contaminated rock from the old gun factory above the falls.
Despite all of this, we hugged the chain railing and were able to get pretty close to the falls which were massive and partially frozen, and just very, very cool looking.
After spending the morning exploring waterfalls, we went back to the Airbnb for lunch, but if you're looking for restaurants in the area, Ithaca is a wealth of options!
Following lunch we decided to go to Six Mile Creek Winery which was conveniently located right by our Airbnb! We had the place to ourselves and loved chatting with the bartender. The winery is in a beautiful restored barn and they offer winery and distillery tastings. They have a plethora of options from dry to semi-dry, semi-sweet, and sweet reds and whites. Tastings are $8 for six wines. This was my favorite winery of the day.
From there we took a little bit of a drive up the west side of the lake to our next stop: Hosmer Winery. This winery was a little more crowded with a smaller bar and lucky for us a spot opened up right when we came in. Tastings are $12 and include a glass.
After Hosmer, we went to Thirsty Owl winery which was right up the road. This was a bigger space, overlooking the lake and had a pretty large tasting bar. Again we were able to get a spot even though the tasting area was pretty full. We enjoyed the little bit of chatting we were able to do with the bartender as she told us about each wine. They also have a bistro here but it's only open seasonally. Tastings are $5 for five wines.
*Note: many wineries prefer reservations now. This isn't so much of an issue in the winter but outside of January and February, especially weekends you'll want to consider reservations even for only two people
Now it was time to make out way around to the other side of the lake to what Luke really wanted: Aurora Brewing. We had tried to come here on our last couple of trips to the Finger Lakes but it had just been too far out of the way from where we were visiting and staying. We tried a strong bitter, two NE IPAs, and a PBJ stout. The PBJ stout was amazing. The views weren't too bad either.
It was getting late at this point and we had pups to go back to so we ordered take out from Red's Place. The food was super delicious and I highly recommend.
We headed out pretty early the next morning but not before getting coffee from Ithaca Coffee Company which has amazing coffee. It's also a gourmet grocery store and has a bar! Again, highly recommend.
That concludes our winter weekend in the Finger Lakes! Stay tuned for other Finger Lakes itineraries!
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