Ithaca is a small town (~25,000 residents without the students) at the end of Cayuga Lake, one of the finger lakes. The area abounds with waterfalls and some very impressive gorges. Below are some photos (be patient).
Click on the pictures to download the full size image.
Taughannock Falls. Taughannock Falls are in a state park about 10 minutes outside of Ithaca. The left photo was taken from a high overlook and the right from the bottom of the falls. Taughannock falls carries water from the Taughannock creek down to Cayuga Lake. The falls are 215 feet high; the highest waterfalls in the Northeast (33 feet higher than Niagara).
Taughannock Creek. Below the falls the creek makes a short run to the lake in a fairly deep gorge. The water was low enough that some of the creek was dry, as seen on the right.
Cayuaga Lake. Cayuga Lakes, formed by glaciers 10,000 years ago, is over 40 miles long and is one of the Finger Lake. The left photo was taken at Taughannock State Park, about 10 miles up the lake. The right photo is at the bottom of the lake at Stewart Park in Ithaca.
Fall Creek Gorge: Two large gorges run through the Cornell campus, the Fall Creek Gorge and the Cascadilla Creek Gorge. The phots here are from the Fall Creek. The left photo is where the creek becomes very wide to form Bebee Lake. Right beyond the lake, the creeks drops again into the gorge. The right photo is a bridge over the gorge carrying one of the main streets in Cornell (East Avenue). As you can see, the fall colors are just beautiful here.
Fall Creek Gorge: Beyond the east avenue bridge. Both pictures were taken from a suspension foot bridge over the gorge (no good pictures of that bridge yet).