Explorers

In June 2010 a few of the Explorers set out on an excursion to Ohio’s Hocking Hills region. The eventual pouring rain made for a perfect year of lousy weather (cold, wind, snow, and now rain!) for the club’s outings.

The Hocking Hills region lies in the southeast part of Ohio, about a two-hour drive from the Explorers’ home base. The main goal of this trip was to hike amidst some of the most spectacular scenery in the state and see examples of some of the geology concepts the students have learned in school the past few years. The same basic concepts, such as weathering and erosion, were in evidence here just as in other spots the club has visited closer to home, but in a somewhat different setting.

The main difference between the Hocking Hills region and most of the rest of the state is that the glaciers that plowed through Ohio and flattened much of it never reached here. This has left the landforms of the area much more varied, with lots of hills and deep valleys and ravines—perfect spots for seeing layering of sedimentary rock, not to mention the weathering and erosion.

The group visited three sections of Hocking Hills State Park (out of six main “units” that the park contains). The first of these was Ash Cave, which in some ways is similar to formations that the Explorers checked out closer to home at Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve. The “cave” of Ash Cave is not a cavern but a recess cave carved into a rock wall. A hard layer of sedimentary rock lies atop a much softer layer, and this lower soft layer has been weathering away underneath the hard layer, creating an overhang.

Occasionally, on time scales of decades and centuries, gravity overcomes the power of the hard layer of rock, and large chunks break off and fall to the valley below—as evidenced by the big chunks of rock that the students investigated during their visit. Overall, Ash Cave is very similar in many ways to the “slump-block caves” that the group previously saw at Clifton Gorge, with one big difference: Ash Cave is huge, stretching several hundred feet.

Ash Cave also contains one additional feature that delighted the Explorers: the tallest waterfall in Ohio plunges over the lip of the overhang and drops over 90 feet to a pool below.

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From Ash Cave the group drove a couple miles north to the next area, Cedar Falls. (A four-mile each way trail actually connects the three areas the club explored, for anyone who wants to stay on foot the whole way.) At Cedar Falls a trail drops off the rim of a wide gorge and winds its way through the forest and along a stream before eventually coming to the waterfall itself, which many have described as being the prettiest spot in the state of Ohio.

Along the way (in between the requisite stops for throwing rocks into the stream!), Mr. Ramsey described how the Hocking Hills region is sometimes referred to as an “island ecosystem,” with the word island here meaning not a bit of land surrounded by water but instead a spot with different characteristics than the area around it. The reason for this goes back to those glaciers we mentioned at the beginning. Even though the glaciers never quite reached Hocking Hills, the much colder temperatures of the Ice Age brought an entirely different set of plants to the region—plants that we would normally now have to go hundreds of miles north into Canada to find. This occurred all through the state, of course, but when the glaciers receded and the temperatures rose, these cool-weather plants disappeared from Ohio—except in areas like Hocking Hills, where the deep and narrow gorges and the towering forests provide enough shade and moisture that these plants have survived here.

It was after the group made its way back up to the Cedar Falls parking area and took a quick snack break that the skies, which had been threatening all morning, finally opened up. The group headed off to the final area, Old Mans Cave, to finish a wet day of hiking.

Old Mans Cave is regarded by many as the crown jewel of Ohio’s state park system, and for good reason. Its trails crisscross above, across, and within a remarkable gorge full of streams and (at this time of year, anyway) waterfalls. The Explorers hiked along the rim and then descended into the gorge at its head to see the Upper Falls. They then hiked downstream, passing through several tunnels and descending and climbing many steps, all the way past the Devil’s Bathtub and Old Mans Cave itself (another recess cave, similar to but smaller than Ash Cave), before finally ending up at the Lower Falls. From here it was a steep climb up more stairs (and through one long final tunnel) back to the rim and the parking area—and, as many in the group had been mentioning with increasing frequency, lunch!

To see some photos from our trip to Old Mans Cave, check out the Gallery. For more information on Hocking Hills State Park, follow the links.

This is the Hocking Hills web site from the state parks system, with information on hiking and camping and other activities in the area.

Hocking Hills State Park

This link is to the group called Friends of Hocking Hills State Park. They have lots of information on their web site, including some very nice printable maps of each unit of the park.

Friends of Hocking Hills