Glorious to View

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

With spring (finally!) on the horizon, we offer a look at Cornellians navigating—and even enjoying—the recent chilly season

By Joe Wilensky

Getting around campus during the Hill’s earliest days could be arduous for students and faculty alike. In the 1905 book Cornell University: A History, one chemistry prof recalled how getting to his Morrill Hall classroom was an exercise in outdoor adventuring.

It required, he said, descending partway into Cascadilla Gorge, where a muddy path crossed a wooden bridge, climbed through an apple orchard, and crossed a cow pasture cut by a deep ravine. The route became even less passible in winter.

“When snow, slush, and mud alternated with each other, even a professor sometimes forgot his dignity and slid down the bank, and by inadvertence not always all the way down on his feet either,” he recalled. “The hearty sympathy bestowed upon such an unfortunate by student spectators can be imagined, if not believed in.”

Today, thanks to the University’s dedicated facilities and grounds crews, getting to class is far more pleasant. But the picturesque beauty of the season remains.

Scroll down—ideally, from somewhere warm and cozy—for a photographic tour of the Hill’s not-quite-over winter of 2024–25!

Students walk on the Triphammer Falls footbridge near Beebe Lake

A frosty view of Beebe Lake and Triphammer Falls.

Students walk on the Arts Quad during a snowstorm

Seasonally appropriate attire—and equipment—on the Arts Quad.

Students walking on the Cascadilla Gorge trail towards Rhodes Hall during a snowstorm

The long climb to Rhodes Hall.

A student at a ground-floor table at a North Campus residence as students are seen through the windows walking along the paths outside in winter

On North Campus, a café with a view.

The grounds crew prunes plants in the winter near the Cornell Store

Even in winter, the pruning must go on.

Students play frisbee in the winter on the Arts Quad

Tossing a Frisbee, despite the chill.

A student walks on the Cascadilla trail near the tennis courts

An upper (and flatter) part of Cascadilla Gorge Trail.

The bricks of Sage Chapel seem more brilliant amid gray skies.

Students walk to class by Willard Straight Hall

Strolling past the Straight.

A horse grazes near a fence at the Cornell teaching barn

And … one of the Hill’s four-legged denizens enjoys the brisk air.

Top: A student—toting a cold beverage!—crosses the Arts Quad amid a squall. All images in this story by Cornell University photographers Noël Heaney, Sreang Hok, and Jason Koski.

Published March 7, 2025

Comments

Kurt Anderson, Class of 1975
16 Mar, 2025

Really enjoyed seeing these photos.

Reply
Robert Herwick MD, Class of 1964
16 Mar, 2025

I remember well walking up the Fall Creek trail from Alpha Sigma Phi to classes in the middle of winter. By the way, could that photo of Cascadilla Gorge Trail above be mislabled? – looks a lot like the Fall Creek Trail). Anyway, one icy day a fraternity brother slipped and several of the books he was carrying flew off to the left and into the gorge. He was so angry he tossed two more books after them!

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Steve Schmal, Class of 1962
17 Mar, 2025

The coldest weather I ever encountered was in either my junior or senior year at Cornell. The temp must have been about -10. I grew up in Ithaca but even by Ithaca standards that day was frigid. I was living off campus, about a mile’s walk away and what still stands out in my memory was the stillness and the crunch of my boots on the snow that seemed deafening.

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