Where the Road Leads This Fall
By Noah Howard, Tour Cayuga PR Manger
Some fall days in Cayuga County make it hard to stick to an itinerary. You head out with one stop in mind, then the road curves past a hillside that has turned overnight, a vineyard running down a lakeside hill, or a farm stand crowded with apples and squash. A little farther on, blue water appears between the trees. The air is cooler, the fields are gold, and the drive starts taking up more of the day than you planned.
In autumn, the drive itself becomes part of the experience.
On the eastern side of Cayuga Lake, Route 90 carries part of the 87-mile Cayuga Lake Scenic Byway through Cayuga County. The road passes villages, farms, vineyards, and long stretches of open country. Sometimes the lake stays in view for miles. Sometimes it disappears behind trees or fields and returns around the next bend. Either way, this is a route that benefits from a loose schedule.
There is plenty to notice without searching for a designated overlook. A barn at the edge of a wooded hill can be enough reason to slow down. So can a village street lined with maples, a church steeple above the rooftops, or an unexpected view across the water. Crack the windows, take the quieter road when there is time, and let the miles between stops do some of the work.
Harvest season supplies plenty of reasons to pull over.
Across Cayuga County, orchards and farm markets are busy with apples, pumpkins, gourds, late-season vegetables, cider, and baked goods. At Owen Orchards in Weedsport, for example, visitors can pick apples and find pumpkins, gourds, cider, and cider doughnuts. Stops like this change the pace of a drive. Ten minutes can become half an hour once you start looking around.
Finger Lakes Nut Farm in Locke offers a less familiar version of the fall harvest. The farm grows Chinese chestnuts, hazelnuts, and heartnuts, with its chestnut harvest beginning in late September and continuing into October. It is a small detour into a side of local agriculture that many travelers may not expect to find in the Finger Lakes.
The harvest continues in another form at Cayuga County’s wineries, breweries, and cideries. In the vineyards, fall is working season. Grapes come in while the hills around the tasting rooms are changing color. Some stops look out over Cayuga Lake. Others sit among rows of vines or open farmland. The setting is different from place to place, which is a good reason to try more than one.
Cooler afternoons also suit the county’s breweries and cideries. A tasting room, a patio on a mild day, or a glass of something made nearby fits naturally into a drive without turning the day into a race from one reservation to the next. Stop, stay awhile, then keep going.
Eventually, a good fall drive needs a place to get out and walk.
Fillmore Glen State Park in Moravia changes the scale completely. Trails enter a long, narrow gorge where dense woods crowd the stream and five waterfalls break up the route. By October, fallen leaves collect along the trail and the color is overhead as much as it is in the distance. After seeing autumn from the road, the park brings it close.
Sterling Nature Center, in the northern part of the county, opens the view back up. Its trails cross woodland, meadow, and wetland before reaching the bluffs and Lake Ontario shoreline. The preserve covers about 1,400 acres and includes nearly two miles of shoreline. Fall migration brings another reason to go. Birds stop at Sterling to rest and refuel on their way south, and the center schedules fall birding programs around that seasonal movement.
A day on Cayuga County roads can cover a surprising amount of ground without feeling like a checklist. Lake country gives way to farmland. A village leads to a vineyard. A stop for apples turns into a longer conversation at a farm market. Later, a trail walk through a gorge or along Lake Ontario changes the view again.
The trick is to leave some space in the day.
Start with a road and a few places you came to see. Leave enough time to follow a handwritten sign, turn down a side road because the trees look particularly colorful, or stop when the lake suddenly comes into view. Fall does not need much help with the scenery.