Hocking Hills

We took the opportunity to visit one of the mountainous areas in Ohio. Hocking Hills is exactly that. A region of hills that the Wolverine area hills would dwarf. But the scenery was beautiful. It made us feel like we were walking the Elven paths in Lord of the Rings. Green and lush with ferns and hardwood trees surrounding us. We went in Mid May so the spring water flows were still high. The waterfalls were amazing.

The first four pictures are from Old Man's cave. The area is sandstone and the caves have been carved out by the stream. We took Mike, Jess and Hannah with us a month or so later and as Hannah can attest there are allot of stairs.

Upper Falls are about 20 yards from the parking lot. You could miss them if you didn't know they were there. We started at Old Mans Cave and walked the entire loop and were surprised by how close we were to the truck at the upper falls.

Bath Tub. It truly looks like an old fashion round bath tub. It looks friendly enough but the sign says that it is deeper than it looks and very dangerous.

This is the trail to lower falls. There were many bridges and as you know Mom likes bridges. The moss covered allot of the stone work and the bridges were a little slick. But very cool.

Below is the trail to the rock house. Rock house is a small cave, Well about the size of our apartment. This was one of the scarier trails. Several of the carved out staircases did not have safety rails.

Inside the rock house

Inside the Rock House looking back down at the trail we had to climb to get here. Many people have carved their names in the sandstone. Many crazy people did it very close to the edge.

Conkles Hollow is supposed to be one of the best fall color spots in all of Ohio. There are two paths. One is handicap accessible and the other is one of the most dangerous walks in the park. As we had been walking for two days straight we took the easier path. It was amazing. There were so many ferns. It reminded me of the Redwood forest and the trip our family took several years ago. There were waterfalls along the way and a waterfall and pool at the end of the canyon.

Cantwell cliffs were Dad's favorite hike. We took pictures of fat ladies squeeze which is a narrow stair case at the start of the hike. Dad's favorite part was that he and Mom were the only ones on the trail for most of the walk. It was so quiet and peaceful. And of course he was with his favorite person.

As stated above there were many bridges and Mom got pictures of them all.

You would never believe it but Mom loves to see wild mushrooms growing. She would stop and take pictures. Have to admit they were pretty cool. The middle photo on the top row we called the outdoor toilet seat. It even had a soft cover. This is really a fallen tree stump with moss growing around the rim.

This is one of the many, many, many staircases in the park. I believe this is called the stairway to heaven. It is part of the trail in Conkles Hollow that is so dangerous. It takes you around the rim of the canyon. Every year people fall from this trail to the canyon below.

It was an amazing weekend. Our legs were very sore for several days after because of the many, many staircases. But the next weekend we wished we were back.