March 8, 2024
Coming Soon
Signs went up recently at the Gorge Road intersection with Black Diamond and the Jacksonville Road parking lot. Substantial improvements are coming by the end of 2025! Trail resurfacing and erosion control are welcome enhancements, as the trail can suffer from rain, snow, and rapid thaw/freeze cycles.
The new 74-spot trailhead parking lot will be accessed from Gorge Road. A path will connect directly to Black Diamond just north of its intersection with Gorge Road, and patrons can walk a short distance to the left to access the bridge across the north gorge of Taughannock Falls State Park, linking up with the 3-mile gorge trail.
Site plan
The sign also touts a four-season restroom, welcome news for anyone who enjoys hiking, running, skiing, or snowshoeing on Black Diamond during the winter.
Bathroom rendition
Trail bridge improvements are on the way, which will rehabilitate the railroad trestle bridge spanning the gorge. It currently has areas of crumbling concrete and a chain link fence. The Jacksonville Road parking lot will be allowed to return to its natural vegetated state.
July 16, 2024
Black Diamond Trail Access Closed
I spoke with Bill Hughes at Taughannock Park this morning. The Jacksonville Road parking lot is closed for a week. After that time (and since it’s a contractor, July 23 may be fungible), half of the parking lot will be available again and the other half will be used for construction staging. During this week, all access from that parking lot to BDT is closed, so reroute along Jacksonville Road and Gorge Road to get to BDT. When the lot re-opens, the access to BDT will not be along the current path, but instead along the footpath at the top of the bridge that crosses the gorge. I made a video to show what that looks like. It should be fairly clear with fencing when it is completed, too.
July 26, 2024
The Jacksonville Road parking lot is open again. The access from the parking lot to the trail is also available, though I’m not sure if they’ll be changing that, but they’ll have a short reroute when they do. The area for the new parking lot off Gorge Road is totally cleared of trees and debris, though stumps remain.
Jacksonville Road parking lot reopened
September 6, 2024
There's a lot of excavation progress in the parking lot area off of Gorge Road, including a pad for what I presume will be the structure adjacent to the parking lot.
Excavation progress
The path that connects the Jacksonville parking lot to the Black Diamond Trail is ringed by tall semi-permanent fencing, in preparation for what I presume will be closure of that path. As noted above, the plan is to connect Black Diamond to the rim trail via the singletrack footpath that goes off to the right.
Semi-permanent fencing
There's a huge pile of dirt, presumably excavated from the new parking lot area, in the Jacksonville Road lot. The lot appears to be halved by that same semi-permanent fencing, so if you plan to start your day from that end of the park, be prepared for low (or no) capacity in that lot, depending on the day and time you arrive.
That's a dirt pile!
September 22, 2024
Another quick set of progress photos, this time from Gorge Road, where the parking pads are clearly visible with grading around the periphery.
Parking pads
An effective way to block a driveway
October 4, 2024
The pedestrian bridge at the top of the park is no longer passable, with fencing up on the south side. The Jacksonville Road parking lot is also fully closed at the moment, so if you enjoy hiking the rim trail, you'll need to duck under the trestle (there are a few paths down) just north of the pedestrian bridge and cross on the road bridge. To get back to the trail, head up to Gorge Road and follow that down to the small parking lot halfway down the hill. That's right: the entire top half of the South Rim Trail is closed!
A last view of the pedestrian bridge?
The trestle underpass
Bathroom building progress
Parking lot progress
October 24, 2024
The park posted a notice today, along with the accompanying map, about the closure of the upper portion of the North Rim (NR) and South Rim (SR) trails, including the railroad trestle. Those trail segments, along with the Jacksonville Road parking lot, will be closed "until further notice" starting on Monday, October 24. If you want to continue to hike around the entire rim trail, you can exit the rim trail (on the north, close to the top on Taughannock Park Road, and on the south, where the trail runs along Gorge Road near the small parking lot halfway down the hill) and follow the roads around the top of the park. Or, consider an out-and-back from where you park to make up your planned mileage.
Closure map
October 28, 2024
From Liz Graeper Thomas on Facebook – The railroad trestle is now closed at the top of Taughannock Park and the trail dead ends on the south Rim Trail at the trestle requiring hikers doing a clockwise loop on the Rim Trail to double back to the small parking area on Gorge Road to complete a loop. Because that's a BIG pain, we've created a detour from the Rim Trail, through our land to get back onto Gorge Road without a big double back. Look for a detour sign on cardboard before reaching the trestle off the Rim Trail. Follow the white blazes to reach Gorge Road. (original post)