With winter hopefully coming to an end soon it was a good day to check out Hocking Hills State Park, and the numerous waterfalls throughout the park.
For this hike we started at the top of the gorge, where the aptly named Upper Falls is located.
As we made our way downstream we passed numerous ice formations on the gorge walls.
While the icicles are all bumpy, the icy spots on the trail were perfectly smooth, and very slick.
The day was mostly cloudy but we did have a peak of the sun highlight the lower falls and rock formation near one of the trails exiting the gorge.
Much like snowflakes, it seems no two icicles are the same.
The stream continues down the gorge with numerous small waterfalls.
We reached the lower falls before heading off for other trails.
Broken Rock Falls is at the end of a short side trail. Despite the narrow path for the water to travel over the wall, it came down with significant noise.
We moved on to Cedar Falls where the path to the falls took us past more interesting formations on the gorge wall. It seems the ice here was ‘stuck’ to the wall, as opposed to the numerous icicles elsewhere, although there were some here too.
The light mist that comes over the edge causes the light coating.
Cedar Falls is one of the nicer ones in the park.
Another waterfalls was hidden around the corner from the main falls, and all of the people. Note the two logs framing the sides covered in ice as well.
Our final stop was Ash Cave. We saved this for our ‘grand finale’, however the cone at the bottom wasn’t nearly as tall as in previous years.
Still it is an impressive falls.
A close up of the ice ‘cone’ at the bottom with the mist of water barely visible in the center.
All in all it was a great day in the park, and my phone says I climbed the equivalent of 54 stories of a building! Exercise and photography, what could be better.
RDZ Photography 