While you can reach Taughannock (pronounced ta-‘gan-ick) Falls by car, the more scenic route is the Black Diamond Bike Trail. The Black Diamond was a luxury train which ran between New York City and Buffalo from 1896 through 1959. It is now a shady, peaceful, 7.5 mile bike trail with a gentle slope along the old rail grade. The bike path brings you to the place where Taughannock Creek starts to descend into the gorge. Although the creek is going down, the sights are all uphill from here!
Another trail, in town, actually, on the Cornell campus, with, yes, more waterfalls…
A walk in the woods, close to town, along a creek which led to surprisingly large dam…
As indicated earlier, there is a problem with the Erie Canal which prevents us to continue our journey. Between Locks 29 in Palmyra and 30 in Macedon, a dam was washed out back in May. (Yes, the canal has a leak 🙂 ). Here is a picture of the damaged area.
Because of this breach, the Erie Canal has only a depth of 5 feet in this section, too little for our boat, which has a nominal 5′ 10″ (1.75 m) draft. Most motor pleasure boats who pass through the canal, and in particular most of the boats other Loopers use, have less than 5′ draft, and are in fact able to continue their journey. It is mostly sailboats who are affected by this reduction in depth.
The new dam has been designed, but the design needs to be approved by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and the New York Department of Environmental Protection. This approval is expected the week of June 14th. The construction is estimated to take 2 weeks. After that, the canal has to be filled with water, of course. That will take another day or two. The earliest the canal will be passable for boats with more than 5 feet draft is the first week of July.
We have another option to bring the boat to Lake Erie to continue our trip: go back to the Oswego Canal, continue to Oswego on Lake Ontario, step the mast, and sail on Lake Ontario to Youngstown, NY, located at the mouth of the Niagara River. In parallel to the Niagara Falls, the Welland Canal allows oceangoing ships to be lifted by 326 feet (100m) from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. In normal times, that would be a relatively easy solution to our problem with the Erie Canal. But, the Welland Canal lies completely within Canadian territory, and because of Covid we are not allowed to enter Canada. Therefore, we would have to hire a commercial captain and crew to bring our boat from Youngstown (still US) to Buffalo on Lake Erie (also in the US). This is not only expensive, but also requires a lot of bureaucracy. For now, we have decided not to pursue this option but to wait for the Erie Canal repair.
In the meantime, we are enjoying a vacation in Ithaca on Lake Cayuga …
What was intended to be a 2-3 day side trip on Cayuga Lake has turned out to be what may be a two week delay in our forward motion to the Great Lakes.
The water level in the Erie Canal is controlled with a series of dams and guard-gates. A spillway between Lock 29 and Lock 30 failed catastrophically and emptied the dam, which in turn, lowered the water level in a 2.8 mile (4.5km) section of the canal. The normal depth of 12′ (3.6m) is currently only 6′ (2m). However, there is also a 1000′ (300m) section with silt deposits where the depth is reduced to 5′ (1.5m). The draft on Aurora is 5’9″ (1.85m)… 😕
More to come on how we solve this problem, in the meantime, we are capitalizing on our time here in Ithaca, NY.
We decided to share some color today, other than green…
We’ve been remiss in posting… Memorial Day weekend weather meant we spent 2 days on the wall in Schenectady and after that it was days of water, trees and locks so I knew I could catch up and you wouldn’t miss anything…
We escaped the solitude and cold rain with a delicious, gracious breakfast with Beth (our Cambridge neighbor!), Barbara and Jane, then a tour of Schenectady. Beth was kind enough to schlep us to the grocery store, too! Thank you, Beth!
To be precise, our Erie Canal journey, until yesterday, took place primarily on the Mohawk River which was co-opted as the canal in the 1920’s when the Erie Canal was widened for the second time. We entered “strictly canal” territory (besides the Flight of Five) after Lock 16 yesterday and then re-joined the Mohawk today. You would almost never know though from the view from the bow of the boat. The river just bends more…🙃
We left the Hudson River today and, in a baptism by fire, learned how to “lock through”. The first lock was the Federal lock in Troy where we had the entire lock to ourselves. Once on the “official” Erie Canal, we bagged the “Flight of Five” – five lift locks which lifted Aurora 169ft (51m) in 1.6 miles (2.5km). The distance is twice the total lift from sea level to the summit of the Panama Canal!
The Flight of Five are the same routine so we have graduated from neophyte to rookie by the end of today’s journey…
Not everyone has to work so hard to climb the Flight of Five…
