Frozen falls...finally

We finally made it to Hocking Hills this weekend. It was a beautiful day, not to mention about 20+ degrees warmer than it was last weekend!

We took some back roads from our home in Newark down to Logan County. Rt 664 was one of those roads that rises, falls quickly, leaving your stomach in your throat! Lot's of fun. Sonia quipped "Are we in Ohio?!" On the route, we passed thru some quaint towns, like Bremen (right), that would be neat to revisit in a future visit back to Hocking Hills.
The drive down was overcast, but the sun joined us for the hike! The falls and resulting ice structures were as spectacular as expected. It's cool to not only see the ice formed where the water flows, but also everywhere that it touches on the way down (branches, etc.) as well as where it splashes! We visited Old Man's Cave, Ash Cave, and Cedar Falls.

~~~~ Old Man's Cave ~~~~

One unexpected benefit was that because of the ice, you could walk closer to, even behind, some of the falls. Normally, you would not be able to get close to them because of the pool of water that the falls fell into. We didn't make it all the way down to Lower Falls, because we had limited time.

~~~~ Ash Cave ~~~~

Ash falls was not quite as spectacular as we had hoped. We had seen pictures of the falls frozen from the cliff above all the way to the pool below (if I had to guess, at least 60 ft). What we found instead was the bottom of the creation but not the top. Looking around on the ice covered ground, it appeared that there had been some large formations that must have fallen off from the cliff. The ice at the bottom was pretty impressive, though, about 20 ft tall.

~~~~ Cedar Falls ~~~~

We weren't planning to go to Cedar Falls, but a guy at Ash Cave said it was worth the trek, so we took off. It was awesome. It was neat to see the "tube" of water that was created by the ice formations. Some of the enclosures were transparent enough that you could see the water flowing inside the frozen falls. Very cool. Because the flowing water was "inside" the falls, we were able to walk right up to the falls. Only after watching a few others test the ice for us! :-)






Overall, all the walkways were quite clear. The temperature must've been just above freezing because the steps and trail were wet and muddy in spots. It was nice not having the crowds that are usually there during the Winter Hike, but we missed the associated festivities too. Maybe next year.

Meanwhile, it will be fun to return later this year when things are warm and green, and compare pictures!

For more pictures, and enlargements of the ones above, click here!