15 January 2022
Earlier this month, Matt drove down to Florida to hang out at the theme parks with some friends and on his way back home, took a slight detour through New York to pick up some stuff from a buddy who lives about 20 minutes south of Niagara Falls. He told Matt the Falls were really cool in the winter and he should check them out; I happened to have a 3 day weekend during that time, so I decided we should spend a day exploring together.
I flew out on Friday evening, hitting the tail end of a snowstorm that had rolled though the Cities:
My flight ended up being delayed by about 45 minutes, but fortunately my connecting flight was also running a bit late, so I made it to Buffalo, getting in shortly before midnight.
Matt spent the night in West Virginia, so he had a bit of driving to do in the morning. When he made it to my hotel in the early afternoon, we headed straight to the falls to make the most of the daylight we had.
A lot of the park is closed during the winter months, and construction projects closed other parts, so our plan was to start on the east side of American Falls, walking along the river and onto the Observation Tower, then cross the American Falls pedestrian bridge and check out Bridal Veil Falls and Horseshoe Falls, and see if any part of the Cave of the Winds is open.
Welcome to Niagara Falls State Park:
There was a pretty impressive vapor cloud that did a good job of blocking the sun:
I apparently didn’t take a picture of the Observation Tower itself, but the usual $1.25 per person entrance fee was waived today:
Not sure if that’s a winter thing, or because it was exceptionally cold (single digits) today, but there more people at Niagara than I expected to see.
Hey, look! It’s us on the Observation Deck with the American half of the Falls!
This is the American Falls- it plus Bridal Veil Falls (which you can’t really differentiate in this picture) make up only about 10% of the Niagara Falls:
Other notable things seen from the Observation deck- the frozen stair leading down to where you board the Maid of the Mist:
the Maid of the Mist in dry dock:
and the Rainbow Bridge to Canada!
I did bring our passports, because the views from Canada are WAY better than the US side, but with all the Covid restrictions, we didn’t do any border crossings this trip.
Farewell, American half of the Falls!
Heading back up the trails, we crossed over this bridge to Goat Island:
There were several rusted out holes (and many that were larger than this one), but I appreciated the attempt at patching it with asphalt:
Welcome to Goat Island:
My mask came in handy to my face warm!
A RAINBOW!!!
and even though it didn’t show up too well in this picture, A DOUBLE RAINBOW!!!
I have a picture of me as a kid on that platform in the middle of the falls that I was hoping to duplicate, but that path was closed 🙁
(also, that green structure in front of the Rainbow Bridge is the Observation Tower)
Me, Matt and the rainbow 🙂
The mist from the Falls froze on some of the nearby trees:
Also, Canada has all the fun stuff- a Ferris wheel, an enclosed observation tower that spins, really big icicles:
…someday, we will make it to the Canadian side!
I appreciated the dramatic caution people on these signs:
This is Horseshoe Falls:
It looks WAY cooler from the other side, though it did have a very impressive vapor plume:
Sometimes in the winter, parts of the Cave of the Winds remains open, as this high-quality map shows:
But today, nothing was open, though the emptiness did make for some nice pictures:
The light was beginning to fade, so we stopped at Tim Horton’s for dinner before Matt dropped me back at my hotel:
Unfortunately, going late in the day meant that their selection was extremely picked over, but these donut holes and the muffin I got were quite tasty. Wish we had one locally!
About half an hour after Matt left, as I was packing and prepping for my early flight out, I realized I could no longer see my boarding pass. It worked fine when I checked in earlier in the day, so I logged onto the Delta site and discovered my flight had been cancelled! No call, no text, no notifications. Nothing.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find another flight out until Monday, when I was supposed to be at work, so I quickly called Matt, who turned around and picked me back up. We drove about 3 hours before crashing in Ohio for the night, then woke up and roadtripped the remaining 12 hours home:
Initially, I wanted to drive Detroit and meet up with my plane (my 2nd flight was still a go) so I could fly back to the Cities and get my car, but that would have added another couple hours to an already long drive that Matt would then be making solo, so I cancelled my flight and we’ll just drive up to the Cities later in the week when I have a day off work and retrieve my car then. You’re welcome MSP for the extra parking money.
Update (1/17): it cost a whopping $96 to get my car back! Oof! Way more than the $50 or so I was expecting for the 1.5 days my car should have been there. I guess 3 days plus some odd hours of parking really adds up! Totally worth it 🙂