Hocking Hills State Park

A couple weeks ago, we decided to take a weekend trip to Columbus, Ohio for my son’s 11th birthday. Our whole trip started because we just HAD to visit the Columbus Zoo after watching Secrets of the Zoo on Disney+. So, since I didn’t just want to travel 5 ½ hours to go to a zoo, I looked for other things we could do while we were there. Recently, my family has gotten really into hiking, so I looked for somewhere we could go. That’s when I found Hocking Hills. I had heard of this state park, but never visited. After reading some reviews, I was pumped. It’s about an hour away from Columbus, but I figured we’d spend a couple hours there and make a day of it.

We drove out to Hocking Hills State Park and let me tell you, that last bit of the drive there is no joke. I’m talking a 2-lane road with twists, turns, and hills. Personally, I had a blast driving, but my husband was nervous so...just be aware. It’s not right off the highway.

But Oh. My. Gosh! When we got to the parking lot (at Old Man’s Cave Visitor Center), there were cars everywhere! People were parked along the road, all over the place, in the grass. It was insane. I was not excited. I did not drive an hour to hike with 3,000 other people. But since we had driven so far, I was determined to make the best of it and we luckily found a spot right up by the Visitor’s Center. Someone was leaving, just as we pulled around.

Due to Covid, we decided to wear our masks. However, I will tell you that almost no one else did. Luckily, once we got on the trail, people were mostly spread out. The further and further we got into the trail, the fewer people there actually were.

There are so many beautiful sights along this trail. And a couple different trail options to take.

First, note that (at least at the current moment) these trails are meant to be one way.

We started out taking the Upper Falls Loop Trail where we saw the Upper Falls.

Then, we quickly diverted to the Grandma Gatewood (Buckeye) Trail, which took us to the bottom of the Falls and on to Devil’s Bathtub.

We then continued on and chose to keep going toward the Lower Falls instead of turning toward Old Man’s Cave.

I honestly had the most fun at the Lower Falls. We spent so much time here. My son and I definitely broke the rules and went off trail. But it was just so pretty. We couldn’t resist. We walked behind the falls. And we climbed a rock. Which gave us some amazing pictures.

Then we took the Lower Access Trail (which had SO many stairs) up to the Gorge Exit Trail.

At this point, we’re like, how do we get to Old Man’s Cave? I don’t know if we just couldn’t see where to go or what, but we ended up going the wrong way on the trail to backtrack to Old Man’s Cave once we saw the Visitor’s Center. This was such a fun place to explore.

 

Seriously, this whole place was very interesting and we had a ton of fun exploring it! Ideally, there would have been fewer people there, but we did somehow end up here on the first beautiful day of the entire year with clear skies in the low 70s. Plus, it was a Saturday.

There were way more trails to explore, but we were starting to get tired, so we headed back to the car.

We did end up driving over to Cedar Falls. And it was pretty. And we thought it was worth the visit. But be aware that the entire trail to this is stairs. Seriously, straight down. Look at the falls. Straight back up. It was insane. But we loved it!

Overall, I walked 14,816 steps that day. We were exhausted, but we enjoyed every second of it.