Active Pursuits in Buffalo, NY
Boating -- Find out what Lake Erie is all about on a trip aboard the Miss Buffalo II (tel. 800/244-8684 or 716/856-6696; www.buffaloharborcruises.com). Narrated tours and lunch cruises, providing views of Buffalo's unique architecture, depart from the Erie Basin Marina downtown from July to Labor Day (Tues-Sun).
Playing in the Parks -- When Buffalo business was booming, the city hired New York City Central Park designer Frederick Law Olmsted to create a parks system that was unrivaled in its era. If you only have time for one, Delaware Park is a 350-acre gem with wide-open spaces and quiet walkways. On some summer evenings, you can enjoy Shakespearean plays performed alfresco. The other parks are Martin Luther King, Jr.; Front; South; Cazenovia; and Riverside.
Outside the City
Erie Canal Experiences -- Take a ride on the man-made water route that transformed upstate New York. Get on a boat with Lockport Locks and Erie Canal Cruises, 210 Market St., Lockport (tel. 800/378-0352 or 716/433-6155), for the 2-hour experience of being raised through the 49-foot elevation of the Niagara Escarpment in the only double set of locks on the canal (mid-May to mid-Oct; $15 adults, $8.50 kids 4-10). Pass under bridges, see water cascade over locks, and travel through the solid walls of the "rock cut." No, it's no speedboat ride, but if you haven't experienced going through a lock, it's pretty cool. Or take the Lockport Cave and Underground Boat Ride, 2 Pine St. (tel. 716/438-0174). You'll walk through a 1,600-foot tunnel, blasted out of solid rock in the 1800s, then ride a boat to see the start of geologic cave formations and miner artifacts (early May weekends only, end of May to mid-Oct daily; $9.25 adults, $6 kids 4-12).
Parks -- You can explore cliffs, crevices, cavernous dens, and caves of quartz in two parks with tons of the hardened rock: Rock City Park, 505 Rte. 16 South, Olean (tel. 866/404-ROCK), open early May 1 to the end of October, and Panama Rocks, Route 10, Panama (tel. 716/782-2845), open mid-May to mid-October. Take an hour for either. Or get out among the trees in Allegany State Park (tel. 716/354-9121): Its 65,000 acres, most of it primitive woodland, make it the largest state park in the system, with sand beaches as well as hiking and nature trails.
Skiing -- It's not exactly Colorado, or Vermont, or even, well, the Adirondacks. But here's where to go when you absolutely must get your swoosh on. At Kissing Bridge, in Glenwood (tel. 716/592-4963; www.kbski.com), you'll find 38 snow-covered slopes, encompassing 700 acres of terrain and served by 10 lifts. And Holiday Valley, in Ellicottville (tel. 716/699-2345; www.holidayvalley.com), has 13 lifts, 56 slopes spread over 1,400 acres, and a 750-foot vertical drop -- so you'll get good variety no matter what kind of skiing or riding you like.
