A brief December visit to Cuyahoga Valley National Park proved memorable as Park Junkie was gifted with a window of clear weather and an introduction to what is now, a new favorite area of the park!
I know… I know… This park is commonly viewed as one of those “better to visit in summer” parks, and I certainly do not wish to dispute that. But hey, this is December, and I’m already in Ohio to visit the folks, so I’m going to CVNP! After my winter visit, I can assure you, winter in Cuyahoga Valley is fun!
Guide to Cuyahoga Valley
Pulling into the southern section of the park around 9pm, I first motored into the Boston Mills Ski Resort’s parking lot and considered sleeping there in my van. However, as the parking lot quickly emptied upon night-skiing’s end, it became apparent that I would be the only remaining vehicle in the lot. Past experience has taught me that this usually leads some underpaid employee to my doorstep in an attempt to kindly (or rudely) usher me along, shortly after I have fallen into peaceful slumber in my cozy mobile abode…
Thus I decided to roll on down the road to the Walmart parking lot in nearby Cuyahoga Falls. This worked out well and I snoozed there for eight hours before rising to return to the Boston Mills Visitor’s Center in the early morning hours. There I found that the visitor center does not open until 09:30… So, I changed into my winter activity clothing and boots, and headed out unadvised to see just what all the rage is about in Cuyahoga Valley.
A quick gander at the park unigrid map, available in outside map-boxes everywhere throughout the park (no other national park offers easier access to the unigrid map, there are map-boxes literally, everywhere in CVNP) led me to conclude that the best bet from my location was to head out onto the nearby Buckeye Trail and use it to access Blue Hen falls and just see what happened from there as I hiked northward toward the Jaite Mill historic district.
So out I went… From Boston Mills Station, I crossed Riverview Rd and shortly accessed the Buckeye Trail where I entered the woods with the idea to simply put in some miles, as the prior week had witnessed a total of zero miles of hiking and very little activity while at my parent’s place. I needed to play…
The pace was quick and the air a brisk 35 degrees as I moved through a deciduous forest absent of canopy cover, as 2017’s leaves now covered the cold forest floor. The land lay quiet aside from the constant groan of freeway traffic from nearby urban corridors. Multiple interstate and state highway systems crisscross this park, as well as the 137 year-old B&O railroad that runs north-south through the park. These stand as constant reminders that this park is not made up of the typical unspoiled landscape and untamed wilderness found in most national parks.
While the sounds of urban sprawl may deter some from enjoyment of such lands, I quickly grew to enjoy the perpetual hum emitting from the surrounding landscape, as I realized that I was completely removed from its grasp. Those folk had responsibilities and deadlines and deliveries and meetings and greetings and bullshit to deal with… and I had a national park to explore!
A short two-minute stroll down the trail brought me to the falls, laden with snow and ice, as well as the presumed owner of the truck above, with a new-born in arm and a unleashed dog, who was very eager to meet me. The gentleman asked from afar if I was “okay with the dog” to which I replied “sure, if the dog is okay with me”… The dog approached, eager to meet yet another interesting human and I extended my gloved hand for the greeting and a quick smell to assure the K9 that I was indeed,”cool”…. Dog was cool and thus I was cool with him, I continued toward the falls…
Dogs are quite common in this park and many visitors seem to adhere to a leash free system here while on trails away from roadways, although park regulations indicate that pets should be held to leashes six feet or less in length. I don’t really care, as I’m fine with well-behaved dogs and I’ll kick the shit out of a badly-behaved dog without appology, but hikers should be aware that dogs may be on the loose here despite park regulations to the contrary.
I made haste toward the lower section of the falls in order to examine photo options. After fifteen minutes cursing the panoramic setting on my iPhone and uselessly repeating attempts for the perfect frame while staggering about in flowing water that constantly threatened to overlap my boot-tops, I settled on some slow-motion video footage I accidentally captured and decided to bust a move and get back on the trail. Toes getting cold…
My first friend had vanished, replaced by another visitor with an unleashed dog, this one amicable as well. I said a quick hello via a pat on the head and made my way up toward the ridgeline that lay just ahead. Shortly thereafter, I made my way across Columbia Rd. and toward the north. The trail was quiet and desolate.
On most trails in our park system, once you hike about a mile from the paved surface, human interaction often becomes a rarity, and this proved true once again in CVNP. Aside from the two dog-walkers at Blue Hen falls, I encountered one lone passerby, a headset-wearing trail runner, in around 6 miles of hiking on a mid-December day along this section of the Buckeye Trail.
Enjoyable indeed is the terrain between the Blue Hen and the Jaite Mill area as the trail rolls along through heavily wooded groves of hardwoods while meandering along a ridgeline that offers nice views of gorgeous northeast Ohio in the leafless winter. I think summer scenery to be even better, although views are often obscured by those pesky leaves…
A quick descent from the ridge top toward Snowville Rd. brought me back to pavement and the park headquarters at Jaite. Cool buildings… all yellow and that…
From Jaite, I headed across the Cuyahoga River on a connector trail and then back toward the Boston Mills area via the canal-side Ohio Towpath Trail. This towpath trail runs north-south the length of the park and is a popular way to move about the park in warmer months as bicycles are allowed to ridehard on the trail. Unfortunately for me however, this was December and it had snowed about a week before my visit and the towpath was a sloshy mess despite the well-maintained appearance of the trail. It gets a lot of traffic.
Given the conditions of the towpath trail, I elected to jump off on the less traveled Valley Bridal Trail which sort of runs parallel, but not really, to the towpath trail… Well, let’s just say you can get back to the Boston Mills area from there by either route. The Valley Bridal Trail runs up behind the Brandywine Ski Resort where a brief jaunt up the remote end of the Stanford Rd. can link up with another “connector trail” (connects to Stanford Trail) which runs just above Averill Pond. Just beyond the pond, a link runs to the east toward Brandywine Falls. So, I took that…
It turned out to be fairly close and I arrived shortly at the popular Brandywine Falls, the park’s largest. A couple of people were hanging out at one of the overlooks and a jogger came by, but no one was making the most of the fine day, so I climbed to the top of the falls, stripped my clothes, and took a running leap toward the chilly waters below…
Just playin’… You still reading? Nice work…
Anyway, back in reality, I took a few selfies with the falls and wasted no time in moving back toward the trail, hunger was setting in. I strolled quickly toward the Stanford Trail and headed toward the Stanford House, which is about a fifteen minute stroll from the Boston Mills Visitor’s Center. The field behind the Stanford House is home to the park’s only backcountry campsites. There are five primitive sites available for overnight stays.
Reservations are required. Check the visiting page for more information about camping here.
Just past the Stanford House, I linked up one more with the Towpath Trail and within a few minutes had returned to the visitor’s center. I went in and spoke with the rangers here for a few minutes where I learned of the Ohio and Erie Canal’s most famous “hoggee”, James Garfield, who drove mules beside the canal that pulled barges on the canal. Mr Garfield later became the nation’s 20th President, but that’s another story.
Once I had soaked in about all of the valuable information I could manage at the visitor’s center, which I assure you is not much given my limber mind, I headed back to park junkie’s mobile headquarters where my hunger further guided me to Peninsula, a charming small town in the south central area of the park.
I quickly found my way to Fischer’s Restaurant, right beside the railroad track in what I believe was the center of town. While seated at the bar enjoying a cold local Loggerhead IPA and a reuben sandwich, I reviewed some history of the area as the fact-ridden ranger at the visitor’s center had quite frankly spun my head…
As has been detailed in the park descriptions available here at parkjunkie.com, this park is mad unique due to its creation within an existent industrial society, which at the time Cuyahoga National RecreationArea was created in 1974, had played host to more than 150 years of industry, more than 200 in the surrounding areas.
Constructed to facilitate transport between inland Akron, and lakeside Cleveland, whose position on the shore of Lake Erie meant that the region enjoyed significant commerce as the Great Lakes became a central hub of economic activity in the 18th and 19th centuries before the advent of adequate land travel methods.
The Ohio and Erie Canal was built in the early 1820s and the amount of subsequent commercial traffic through the Cuyahoga Valley in the early years of the industrial revolution would rival that of any similar area in the world at the time. The canal’s heyday soon ended with the construction of railroads in the early 1860s which quickly erased demand for the canal’s convenient route to the Great Lakes.
These facts lend Cuyahoga Valley National Park a most-unique position in the National Park System as well as within the national park idea itself. No other such park boasts land that shares history quite as hardcore as this northeastern Ohio park in terms of raw industrial commerce through which titans of industry essentially raped the land for commercial profit while blatantly polluting rivers, air and land alike. Don’t believe me…?
The level of unregulated industrial activity in the area lent The Cuyahoga River the reputation of being one of the most polluted rivers in the United States and in 1868, the river caught fire…
Allow me to summarize:
The river caught on fire…!
Unfortunately, this would not be an isolated event. This river is documented to have caught fire a recorded 13 times between 1868 and 1969.
Please allow a second summary:
The river caught fire 13 times in just over 100 years…
The last fire was featured in Time Magazine, directing national attention upon the problem of industrial land and river pollution, leading to the formation of the EPA (1970) and the passage of the Clean Water Act (1972).
The same sentiment that brought federal environmental regulations produced a groundswell for a protected area along the river that could encourage the surrounding community’s dedication to guaranteeing a cleaner, more natural river valley for future generations.
So, after my meal and a beer, I called up some friends who live just up the road, Dan and Camielle. We arranged to have a couple of drinks and they offered me a place to park my van in their driveway. I am always happy to have a couple of drinks and an evening with park peeps and these folks are super cool and literally live inside a national park… so they have that going for them, which is nice…
We agreed that I’d drop by their place around 6:30pm for drinks before dinner. Often one to ensure ample beverage is available, I headed out in search of a couple of nice bottles of vino to contribute to the cause and after a few wild goose chases instigated by my homegirl Siri, I made my way to 750ml, a wine bar and store in the Brecksville area.
I grabbed an Orin Swift red blend and a Mer-Soliel Silver Chardonnay from the rack and headed to the counter where a hostess with a nice smile sent me on my way after I gave her the equivalent of a small fraction of a bitcoin for the wine. See ya next time…
We had a touch of wine at their place and went out for Italian at Oggi’s, somewhere in or near Brecksville. I thoroughly enjoyed two Basil Hadin Manhattan’s and a wonderful house-made lasagna that was fantastic.
Gotta say, it was a treat to have a selection of restaurants that offer quality bar and menu services in such a plethora inside a national park… In most parks, luxuries such as this are a dream. A few parks have such amenities just outside the park, but most don’t have towns that offer such options.
After dinner we retired to their place and had a couple more drinks over conversation about parks and what-have-you… Finally, probably hours after everyone wished I had shut my mouth, I passed out in the Sprinter conveniently parked just outside in the drive and enjoyed a night of splendid slumber…
Awakening the next morning, I had some quick coffee with my gracious hosts, and headed back into the wild. I was ready to attack a couple more trails and check out some new areas of the park.
I headed south first, moving toward the Everret Covered Bridge to an attempt grab a cool sunrise shot of the red bridge and creek, which must look fab in the summer draped by the greenery of summer in the Ohio forests. After 23 mediocre attempts, I stomped off in disgust and drove back across the Cuyahoga River and made my way toward the Ledges as I had heard that this was a pretty cool area and my friends had confirmed this by rapid shakes of the head over the previous night’s meal.
I parked at the Happy Days Lodge turnout lot on the north side of Highway 303 and hiked the Boston Run Trail first, as my history-loving ranger from the day before had told me this was one of his favorite trails. Nice trail, kinda rolls along through the forest and covers somewhere around 3 miles with a shortcut available that cuts it by a third. I ran around in the woods out here for a bit, as these Ohio hardwood forests remind me of my childhood home. Many youthful days running about in these Ohio woods… Ah, innocence.
Folks love walking the dogs here too, but most were on a leash, at least when they left the parking lot. I actually did not pass a single person on the trail… December.
(the Happy Days Lodge is on the south side of the highway, but there are not many parking spots for the lodge while there are plenty on the north side)
I came back from this hike and quickly succumbed to a hunger panic as I had skipped my morning can of spinach. Thus I drove the 5 miles or whatever back to Peninsula to check out the place across the street from yesterday’s selection. The Winking Lizard.
Had a seat at the bar once again. I decided upon a burger, the biggest, whichever that was, and a cold beer… I can’t even tell you which beer it was because I forget. Hey, take it easy on me, they have like, 700 beers or so, and I only had one of them. It was an IPA. It was good. How about that?
After lunch, I set back out toward my day’s ultimate destination of the Ledges! I was pretty stoked to check this place out, and had no idea of what lay ahead. I had heard the ledges described in word, but had honestly not even seen images of the this area due to my insistent lack of due process and preparation when examining parks prior to a visit.
So I donned my hat in self-inflicted ignorance and headed out toward the Ledges from the north via the Happy Days Lodge and hit the Haskell Run Trail which connects to the Ledges after a half mile or so. Immediately upon arriving at the Ledges, my soul caught fire! This was what I had been waiting for! Rocky cliffs, green moss and trees combined effortlessly to lift my spirits and I quickened my pace up a small incline in anticipation of cool scenes…
I arrived at the Ledges cliff-base and stopped momentarily to witness tall evergreen and deciduous trees swaying quietly in a light afternoon breeze which sent sunrays dancing in silence upon the leaved forest floor.
I moved toward the sign that directed in one of two ways. The darker, more moss covered landscape appeared to be to the left, so I headed that way (east). Within a thirty second walk, I found an enticing stairway that led, according to the sign, to the Ledges Shelter. I headed up the steps without hesitation, no clue of what this shelter may be, I thought maybe a cave…
Nope, I ran into a kid at the top of the steps. He was laid back reading “Walden” or something similar and seemed intrigued that I had stumbled upon him. I asked him a question about the Ledges, he asked me about my life…
Turns out, the Ledges Shelter is a man-made structure. Interestingly, this kid informed me that the Ledges Shelter was built by the Civilian Conservation Core in the 1930s and is built from the American Chestnut timbers. This tree was essentially massacred by blight in the early 20th century. Once numbering in the billions and constituting 25% of the trees in the Appalachian Mountains, the trees today number in the 100s if any decent size above 24” in diameter is expected.
While I’m into old CCC stuff and love my American Chestnuts, I was more intrigued by the green, moss-covered rocks that lay below me on the outlying ledges that surrounded the raised plateau that is the upper section of the Ledges.
I made moves back down the steps and to the east, toward the darkening green forests and the large rock cliffs that beckoned me as if I was a helpless child.
What wonderful rocks these were. I moved throughout the mazes, pathways and tunnels that formed between the large separated sections of stone that lay covered with lichen and moss. The silence of the forest was surreal, as I realized that the familiar groan of traffic and industry that had nearly faded from my perception over the past two days, had finally disappeared in this thickly wooded terrain. I smiled and breathed deeply of the fine aroma of reclaimed wilderness.
I made a few photos of the calming scenery and pondered the fate of the bats within Ice-box Cave along the northeastern section of the loop. The cave is closed to human entrance due to the presence of the White Nose Syndrome that has devastated bat habitats here in the east.
I moved southward on the trail, weaving between large, building-size boulders that lay silently covered under blankets of downed leaves and rich rotting trees that turn the most beautiful shade of brown during their slow decay. Moving forward, the late-afternoon forest thick with the darkness evergreens provide, I passed a few wondering souls as I made my way toward what I was told would be an excellent view to the west. Upon arrival at the viewpoint, I was indeed gifted with a nice vista toward the west. The view is nice for northern Ohio, but I enjoy it more in warmer times when leaves adorn the trees…
My stroll back toward the van went well. The sunset cast lovely light on the cliffs while the trees threw stilt-like shadows on the vertical rock. More people seem to enjoy this area in the evening, as I passed more people on this section of the trail at sunset than I had passed in more than 12 miles of hiking during the two days that I enjoyed the park. A couple of people had dogs on an evening walk, and some were obviously out for a workout, but most were enjoying a leisurely walk on what I considered the park’s most scenic trail.
Overall, I must admit, I think a summer visit to Cuyahoga Valley would likely be more fulfilling and provide more opportunity for adventure. That said, my visit was nevertheless enjoyable and left me eager to come back for more. I would like to get out on the water in my kayak with a fishing pole here in warmer weather and I believe that equine activity would be cool here too. Of course, I think the towpath trail on a bike would be more rewarding, as many of the restaurants and bars have outdoor seating areas that accommodate visitors and locals alike in towns that are spread throughout the park. How cool to pull in for a snack and a cold beverage while out on an excursion in the park.
This place definitely provides a unique experience in the national park idea. While many parks offer endless miles on remote trails wondering through rugged terrain far from any semblance of human influence, Cuyahoga Valley gives visitors access to a actively revived landscape in the otherwise industrial powerhouse of northeastern Ohio.
See ya there…
Guide to Cuyahoga Valley
Relevant Links
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