Niagara Falls has a new viewing platform that's open in the winter and lets you get right up to the freezing waterfalls — here's what it's like to visit

Niagara Falls' Cave of the Winds experience lets you get right up to the falls.
It was previously only accessible in summer months, but a newly built viewing platform makes the experience available in the winter, too .
In early March, I took a trip to see the falls. The icicles, snow-covered trees, and frozen blue ice mounds were beautiful.
Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories .

Living in Western New York, I sometimes forget that we have a natural world wonder basically in our backyard: Niagara Falls.

There are many ways to view the falls, like a simple hike through the park or a ride on the legendary Maid of the Mist, and some extreme ones like a helicopter ride over the falls to get a bird's eye view. But one of my favorites is Cave of the Winds, which falls somewhere in the middle of this range. At around $7 , the experience is affordable, and depending on what time of the year you go, you can basically reach out and touch the falls.

Until recently, you could only get up close to the Bridal Veil Falls section of Niagara Falls in warmer months. This year, however, a newly built platform gives visitors the opportunity to get a close view of the falls in the colder months and take in the ice that's formed from the falling waters amid frigid temps.

Here's what it's like to visit Cave of the Winds in the winter.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider