Tag: hiking
Old Man’s Cave is the most popular area of Hocking Hills State Park. It is the center of the park. The campground is here and of all the trails in the park, Old Man’s Cave had the most to see. Anticipating the crowds, I decided to visit Old Man’s Cave on Monday morning figuring that the weekend visitors would be gone and the crowds would be less. The rain that had been forecasted all weekend, finally came and I think that helped keep the crowds down too. If you were spending the whole week in Hocking Hills, you were not going hiking in the rain.
As you can see in the above photo, there were still people around and I was glad they were there. I used to be afraid of having people in my landscape photos. Now, I feel like the people in that photo add a frame of reference to the landscape. You can’t tell how big the cave is without people in it for perspective. The people also add life to the photos. They show that this is an area that people explore. They give meaning to the bridges and steps in the landscape.
Old Man’s Cave Upper Falls
While the rain kept the crowds down, it also really added to the atmosphere. Walking through the rainy, foggy, gorges felt like walking through another planet. It felt unreal. It reminded me of walking through Disney World, but this was not created by people. Really, words cannot describe this area. It has to be seen to be comprehended.
As I mentioned, the Old Man’s Cave Trail had the most to see of all the trails in Hocking Hills. There are five main sections of the Old Man’s Cave area, making up about one mile of trails: Upper Falls, Upper Gorge, Middle Falls, Lower Falls and Lower Gorge. Of course, one of the features of the trail is Old Man’s Cave (top) where a hermit lived in the late 1700s. The Grandma Gatewood Trail also begins here and continues on to Ash Cave and Cedar Falls.
Read more in my Hiking Hocking Hills Series: Camping & Hiking Hocking Hills, Ash Cave, Cedar Falls, Conkle’s Hollow and Rock House. To plan your trip to Hocking Hills, visit HockingHills.com If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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The hike to Rock House was the last hike of our full day in Hocking Hills and it was the hardest hike we did. Rock House is the only true cave in the park. It has a ceiling that is 25 feet tall and the main corridor is 200 feet long and is 30 feet wide in spots. Native Americans used the Hominy Holes as baking ovens. Troughs and holding tanks have been carved in the stone to collect rain water. Robbers, murderers and bootleggers once used this out of the way cave as a hideout. A hotel was once erected on the grounds on what is now the picnic shelter. (HockingHills.com)
The Rock House trail is only a half mile long but it is a half mile of large, uneven, sandstone steps. The trail is narrow and children and dogs should be closely supervised. The rock house at the end was totally worth the climb. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. The giant rock house was significantly cooler and less humid than the surrounding areas and was nice break at the end of the climb. This would be a great place to visit around magic hour for better lighting for photos. The light was pretty harsh when we were there and made the spot difficult to photograph.
Read more in my Hiking Hocking Hills Series: Camping & Hiking Hocking Hills, Ash Cave, Cedar Falls, Conkle’s Hollow and Old Man’s Cave (coming soon). To plan your trip to Hocking Hills, visit HockingHills.com If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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When we arrived at the Cedar Falls parking lot, I heard so much screaming I thought there was a roller coaster at the end of the trail. Instead, at the end of the half mile trail we found the largest waterfall by volume in the park. You can see from the below photo, this is another popular spot in the park. The screams that could be heard from the parking lot were from visitors stepping into the chilly water and under the falls. Luckily, the water flowing from the falls wasn’t at full force when I visited, because stepping under the falling water can be dangerous.
Unlike Ash Cave, the Cedar Falls trail is not ADA accessible. It starts with a set of stairs known as Democracy Steps. These steps were designed by artist, architect and mathematician, Akio Hizume, to be “pleasant and relaxing”. I have to say, of all the steps in the park, these were some of the easiest. Before looking at a map, I had forgotten stairs were involved in this hike. According to HockingHills.com “The lengths of individual steps are varied, so that walkers alternate the leading foot, establishing a comfortable pace and rhythm… It reflects mathematical principles of the Fibonacci sequence and the one-dimensional Penrose lattice.” Who knew math could make stairs more enjoyable?
Thank you for stopping by! Read more in my Hiking Hocking Hills Series: Camping & Hiking Hocking Hills, Ash Cave, Conkle’s Hollow, Rock House and Old Man’s Cave (coming soon). To plan your trip to Hocking Hills, visit HockingHills.com. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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The Ash Cave Gorge Trail is probably the easiest hike at Hocking Hills State Park. The quarter mile, ADA accessible trail takes you almost all the way to the falls. The accessibility of this trail makes it a popular site as can be seen from the above photo. Of course, this spot wouldn’t be so popular if it wasn’t stunning. At 700 feet from end to end and the rim rising 90 feet from the ground, Ash Cave is the largest recessed cave in the state of Ohio. Of course, there are more challenging ways to explore Ash Cave as well. Climb 64 steps on the Rim Trail for get a view of the cave from above. (HockingHills.com)
It was forecast to rain the whole time we were in Hocking Hills. When we woke up on our first full day in the park and the rain hadn’t started, we quickly got ready and headed to the trails. Our plan was to see as much as we could before the rain
started and then head back to camp. I had learned since our time at Port Crescent last summer and I brought things to do in the tent to occupy us during the rain. Miraculously, it didn’t rain at all that day and we were able to explore everything we had hoped. What is my point? Don’t look at the weather forecast and cancel your plans! According to the meteorologists there was a 100% chance of rain that day and it didn’t actually start until after the sun went down. We could have cancelled the trip and stayed home but we would have missed these cool sites and some beautiful weather. Of course, that’s not always the case so you need to have a plan for rain. That can be tough tent camping, but some books, a pack of cards, and a rain coat should keep you occupied for a bit.
To plan your trip to Hocking Hills, visit HockingHills.com. Read more in my Hiking Hocking Hills Series: Camping & Hiking Hocking Hills, Cedar Falls, Conkle’s Hollow, Rock House and Old Man’s Cave (coming soon). If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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Hocking Hills State Park is a geological gem in southeast Ohio. As someone who has spent a fair amount of time in Ohio over the years, this area does not feel like Ohio. It felt like a cross between the Pictured Rocks area in the Upper Peninsula and Natural Bridge in Kentucky. Paths and hiking trails weave through sandstone rock formations and around waterfalls to stunning, sometimes otherworldly, vistas. The park is full of towering sandstone cliffs, caves, and amazing waterfalls.
There is an experience at Hocking Hills for all abilities and interests from a leisurely stroll to a more rigorous hike. The trails to Ash Cave, Cedar Falls, and Conkle’s Hollow are easy, paved, and have rewarding views at the end. Old Man’s Cave (featured above) is a little more difficult with some beautiful bridges to cross and carved sandstone steps. We hiked Old Man’s Cave during a drizzle and it felt all encompassing and surreal. Rock House was the most challenging hike we did. It involved climbing narrow, boulder-like steps to an amazing cave-like rock formation that once was a hideaway for bandits. If you are even more adventurous, Cantwell Cliffs and The Hemlock Bridge Trail are more longer, more challenging trails with many steps leading to unique locations in the park. If you are looking to make a full day out of hiking, the Grandma Gatewood Trail connects a lot of the sites so you don’t even need a car to see them all.
During our time in Hocking Hills, we stayed in the Old Man’s Cave Family Campground Hike-in Sites. The hike-in sites are outside of the main campground at the mountain bike trailhead. The sites are fairly well spread out and most of them have a good deal of privacy. The four sites closest to the parking lot are first come first serve and the farthest site back is a good .8 mile walk from the parking lot with many sites in between. The path to the hike-in sites is gravel and a wagon is an easy way to transport your gear to your site. Even though the hike-in sites are separate from the main campground, hke-in campers are given main campground privileges such as use of the shower house and pool. I would definitely recommend the hike-in sites to tent campers that don’t require an electrical hookup because the sites at the main campground are very close together and lack privacy.
Read more in my Hiking Hocking Hills Series: Ash Cave, Cedar Falls, Conkle’s Hollow, Rock House and Old Man’s Cave (coming soon). For more information about the Hocking Hills Area visit HockingHills,com. Thanks for stopping by! If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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I have visited the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore many times. As a child, the “Dune Climb” was something to be done every few years. One time, in my college days, I tricked Ashleigh into doing the entire hike with me all the way to Lake Michigan. “Just one more dune,” I would say, and eventually we made it to the lake. We also one time had the good forture of being able to have a fire between Lake Michigan and the first large dune near the Lake Michigan overlook, which was really special.
About the photo:
This photo was taken from the Empire Bluff Trail, a really great trail just south of Empire, MI, with a picturesque view of the dunes, Platt Lake, and at least one of the Manitou Islands. It was pretty cloudy the day we were there, which allowed for nice, even lighting.
Camera Gear:
Nikon D3100 with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens.
Date Taken:
March 30, 2016
Thank you for reading. You can see my best work on 500px and can also find pictures of the “trying my hardest to be good at this” type on Flickr or Pixoto.
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Recently in my Instagram Travel Challenge, I was given the prompt “Your first…”. Yes, it was a very vague prompt and I wracked my brain to think of a first ever travel memory that I have documented in pictures. I am very blessed in that I got started traveling before I was the one taking pictures so I don’t have a lot of pretty pictures of my firsts.
One of my first photo adventures was also my first backpacking trip, hiking North Carolina’s Mountains to Sea Trail. We hiked the Sea part of the trail, walking from Nags Head to Ocracoke, over 60 miles in 6 days. It was a lot of work, but a good part of the trail is undeveloped seashore with absolutely breathtaking views. I want to go back some day, but this time, bring a car.
About the Photo:
This trip was before I had my DSLR, so all of the photos were taken with a compact Samsung point & shoot. To be honest, that is kind of a blessing, because now I would want to add 20 lbs of camera gear to all the other stuff you have to carry when you go backpacking and my bag was heavy enough as it was! So, this isn’t the highest quality photo, but I love the trail of boot prints in the sand! I did basic edits to this shot using Google’s free editing software, Picassa.
Date Taken:
May 2009
Thanks for stopping by! If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! To plan your trip to the Outer Banks, visit OuterBanks.org. For more information about the Mountains to Sea Trail, check out ncmst.org.