Taughannock Falls State Park

The falls drop 215 feet — 33 feet more than Niagara — into a gorge carved first by glacial ice, then slowly widened by freeze-thaw cycles working the shale at the base. The park sits in the town of Ulysses on 750 acres, with the Gorge Trail leading to the base of the falls year-round. Go in early spring, when snowmelt pushes the volume up, or winter, when the whole thing can freeze into something that looks borrowed from another planet.