South Bass Island had not been kind to us the first two times we tried to camp at the state park there. In fact, the weather downright tried to kill us both times. So we had some doubt when we decided to give it a third chance and booked a cliff-side campsite once again. Something you need to do six months in advance most summers.
About three weeks before the trip, a friend posted about another surprise we should be ready for in the resort town of Put-in-Bay. They have added parking fees for golf carts, something I had never seen in my over a dozen visits there since the 1970s. And something that would really bite into our budget, which mostly consisted of costs for food, alcohol, cart rental and souvenirs.
So we took the off chance that there would be a cabin available in an area of Ohio that both of us had wanted to visit for some time, Hocking Hills. There are miles of trails and we wanted to get some good hiking in.
It’s usually tough to get a cabin there that close to arrival and we have heard about the cost of some of the amenities in the area. But we found some inexpensive cabins about 20 minutes away from the furthest trailhead. Easy to get to except for the extremely dangerous intersection where we had to turn left onto a divided four-lane highway with a 60 MPH speed limit.
We checked into the Hocking Hills Family Fun Center and Campground on a Sunday after a three and a half hour trip from our home town. This included a stop for lunch at a great Lebanese restaurant in the Columbus area. We both had the Lamb Shawarma. It was extremely tasty! Check out Pita House.
We got there about an hour before our cabin was to be ready, so we checked out the winery down the road. We got the sampler flight. I liked the pinot grigio, which is my normal and Karen really liked the peach slushy.
After checking in and getting partially set up in the cabin, it was off to our first two trails. We had a list and an idea of what order we were going to try to tackle them in.
What we found out throughout our trip is that most of these smaller trails where some of the coolest sights are, are pretty much interconnected to longer trails, mostly the Gorge Rim Trail.
Sunday’s Hiking
The initial plan was to take my good Canon Rebel camera because of the sensational scenery we were about to witness. I quickly caboshed the camera idea after the strap became just another piece of cloth that was absorbing my sweat from the hot and humid July afternoon. Plus it was threatening to rain on and off so we thought our phones would do the trick. We were not wrong. (Photos to follow)
We learned early that most traffic along the designated paths was one way. Of course, not everyone followed those rules, including us a couple times.
The first of the seven trails we would tackle over three days featured one of the most popular attractions within Hocking Hills; Rock House.
According to hockinghills.com, Rock House is unique in the Hocking Hills’ region, as it is the only true cave in the park. It is a tunnel-like corridor situated midway up a 150-foot cliff of Blackhand sandstone. This cave has a really cool past, and you can read the webpage that supplies a great history of Rock House here.
We found out quickly that the app All Trails had no idea how to rate the trails in these hills. While the app mentioned this trail was moderate, it was far from it. And we’re experienced hikers. We would have considered that trail challenging.
We did notice most people made the trek in simple sneakers, so we tried as well. After the first day we switched to hiking boots for the rest of the trails.
Rock House was really intense. Once we climbed up through a small opening into the cavern it turned into a very large space. There were names chiseled into the rock. Some things never change. And neither does dating the carvings, as we saw dates as early as 1880.
Part of the lore of this space consisted of Robbers, horse thieves, murderers and even bootleggers visiting, earning Rock House its reputation as Robbers Roost. It seemed like a good idea since it was well hidden among the hills and provided plenty of cover.
We used two different apps to measure our hikes and a third to help determine the elevation we climbed. We are regular users of Map My Walk, which we also use for our kayaking adventures. That app worked every hike, but it doesn’t give us the trail map like All Trails does. All Trails actually failed us twice as we didn’t have a strong enough signal to get it to work.
So any measurements we are listing are pretty damn close.
That being said, we hiked about 2 miles getting to and from Rock House.
Rock House (Map My Walk – 1.79, All Trails – 2.14)
We weren’t sure exactly which trail we tried next. I think I started the wrong trail navigation on All Trails and it nearly got us lost.
This trail follows a small stream known as Long Hollow and the path can get rather muddy if you go after a recent rain. About a little under a mile in, things will get a little confusing. Up the hill to your right, there should be a very large rock outcropping; The cave is up there. Technically there is a trail that takes you up to the outcropping and to the cave but it is very poorly marked.
Just a nice trail that eventually connected to a larger trail we hiked on Tuesday.
Chapel Cave Trail (MMW – 1.55, AT – 1.6)
Sunday total mileage was approximately 3.3 to 3.7 miles with an elevation climb of 87 floors. The floor count comes from one of my default Apple phone apps that measures how many flights of stairs you climb. It counts about 10 feet of elevation rise as a floor, or about 16 steps. It does not count anything when going down.
Then it was time for food. We hunted down a Chinese Buffet, one of our favorite ways to dine and pulled into the parking lot. The place looked deserted. As I opened the door for Karen, I immediately told her to turn around and go back to the car. My hand had gotten very sticky just opening the door. I think that was a good enough omen for me.
We found another place a couple of miles away and when we got there we decided it wasn’t the…uh…environment we were looking for. We ended up at a Bob Evans which was in the same shopping plaza as the Chinese Buffet.
Back to the cabin and our first fire.
Monday
After sleeping until about 9, we decided to use the Coleman grill to cook breakfast. We had brought already-scrambled eggs, bacon and bread. What we didn’t realize was that the un-defrosted part of the cabin refrigerator had turned the entire unit into one big freezer. The bacon was frozen solid and the eggs were a big slushy.
It took a while to accomplish, but we did have a pretty good breakfast that morning. But we also decided that we wouldn’t be trying the frozen burgers or the frozen cheese to go on top.
Then it was on to our longest day of hiking.
The most popular of all the Hocking areas is Old Man’s Cave. Its history is interesting and even mysterious. You can read about it on the Hocking Hills website here, or check out the story in pictures from Karen’s camera.
Once we got to the cave itself, it was pretty anticlimactic.
We continued on past the cave down a path we only got partially along before we decided to turn around. We had a feeling it was still several miles to the next destination. The maps of the area were really confusing to us.
We did spend some time in the Visitor’s Center. We found out more cool facts about the area. But it was time to move on to the second of three trails we would see on this day.
Old Man’s Cave Trail (MMW – 2.77, AT – 3.29)
Since we were there in the middle of a dry summer, we did not see any of the waterfalls flowing. We did see where they were and could imagine water cascading down in many of the places we saw. But we hiked to them anyway.
Cedar Falls itself is the greatest waterfall in terms of volume in the Hocking region. Queer Creek tumbles over the face of the Blackhand sandstone displaying the awesome force of water power. The trail leading to Cedar Falls passes through the most austere area in Hocking Hills. This remote, primitive chasm is laden with hemlock and bound by steep rock walls and their accompanying grottos and waterfalls. It is a wild and lonely but spectacularly beautiful place. There’s more to it and you can read about it here.
Cedar Falls Trail (MMW – 1.38, AT – failed us)
In the southernmost reaches of Hocking Hills is Ash Cave – beyond doubt the most spectacular feature of the entire park. Ash Cave is the largest, most impressive recess cave in the state.
But we didn’t see it, because we parked in the wrong lot. We were a couple of miles away from where we should have been. We’ll thank Google maps and the poor signage for that one.
But we did struggle to walk more than a mile and half after stopping to search. We even ran into other hikers who couldn’t find it.
Ash Cave (MMW – 1.61, AT – 1.67)
Monday’s total hiking mileage was about six miles and we climbed an equivalent of 94 floors.
We really needed to find food. We found a great BBQ place just south of the campgrounds. Karen had a great shrimp dish and my sirloin was cooked to perfection.
After dinner it was time for another campfire and an early bedtime.
We got the fire out just in time for the rain.
Tuesday
The rain from the night before was still lingering making it necessary to drive up to the bathroom/showers in order to use them. I made that drive several times that morning. Each time, the wet sand from the campground driveway covered more of my car.
After packing and checking out, we headed north for a bit to grab some breakfast at a nice little restaurant. We knew we had two more trails to hit, but first we wanted to stop at the Paul A. Johnson Pencil Sharpener Museum, which we had placed on our things to do list before the trip.
That small room was really worth the price of admission…uh…free. Not only did it bring back some great memories of the different sharpeners Karen and I had used and owned over the years, but many of these pieces were pure artwork.
Make sure you look at the photos from there too.
Then it was back to hiking.
Conkle’s Hollow is a rugged, rocky gorge – considered one of the deepest in Ohio. The valley floor is a veritable wilderness covered by a profusion of ferns and wildflowers while hemlock, birch and other hardwood tower overhead. The growth is so thick in places that little or no sunlight reaches the deep valley floor. The trail leading up the narrow half-mile long ravine is surrounded by vertical cliffs rising over 200 feet above the mouth of the gorge. As the trail continues, the gorge narrows further to only a distance of 300 feet from cliff to cliff.
This trail was easily the highest in elevation from the original starting point. I mean, we had to walk up 150 metal/wooden stairs before we even got to the real trailhead.
But this was one of the most magnificent walks of the week. Incredible views and some really treacherous steps, as you’ll see in the photos.
Conkles Hollow (MMW – 2.55, AT – 2.66) And depending on which of those apps we believe, we went up in elevation between 309 and 417 feet.
The last hike was technically not in Hocking Hills State Park, but one adjacent and even connected to the main gorge loop.
The page for Cantwell Cliffs on hockinghills.com says it is located in the northern reaches of Hocking Hills – 17 miles from Old Man’s Cave on S.R. 374. Its remote location discourages visitation, but those who travel the extra distance will not be disappointed. Many visitors proclaim the Cantwell area as the most picturesque in Hocking County. Approaching the rock shelter, the trail winds its way through narrow passageways caused by large slump blocks that have fallen away from the main cliff. The most narrow passage has been sarcastically named Fat Woman’s Squeeze. You can read more about Cantwell Cliffs on the Hocking Hills site.
While one of the shortest hikes of the week, it was a good way to finish up. And by the way, Cantwell Cliffs was actually on the way home from Conkles Hollow, so it wasn’t out of the way.
Cantwell Cliffs (MMW – 1.69, AT – 1.98) 135 floors
Tuesday’s total hiking mileage was about 4 miles and we climbed an equivalent of 135 floors.
After finding a Dairy Queen in a very out-of-the-way manner, we headed home.
We pulled into the condo about three and a half hours later.
The total numbers for the trip were 670 miles by car on the highways and byways and about 13.5 miles by foot on historic trails. We climbed an equivalent of 316 floors or 3,160 feet in elevation. That’s more than a half a mile.
What a great trip. And the weather didn’t try to kill us once.
PHOTOS
See all of our photos below, but for a better photo viewing experience, go directly to the Google Photo Albums:
Click here for all of Karen’s photos.
Click here for all of Frank’s photos.
