Hocking Hills State Park | Winter Hiking in Ohio near Athens, Logan, Hocking county

Description

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Today, we visit Old Man's Cave and Ash Cave at Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio. Also home to beautiful areas like Conkle's Hollow, Cantwell Cliffs, and Rock House, this park features breathtaking scenery for all to enjoy.

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Tags: Hocking County (US County),Hiking (Sport),Hocking Hills State Park (Protected Site),Outdoor Recreation (Interest),ohio department of natural resources,ODNR,Wilderness (Quotation Subject),Backpacking (Sport),Camping (Literature Subject),Recreational Vehicle (Industry),Winter (Quotation Subject),Cave (Geographical Feature Category),Tsuga Canadensis (Organism Classification),Waterfall (Geographical Feature Category),Ohio (US State),old man's cave,ash cave

Video Transcription

after about an hour's drive we had arrived at Hocking Hills State Park one of our favorite little places to visit for weekend getaways and day hikes it was frigid cold and a fresh layer of snow is covering everything in sight in the 18th century the wyandotte lived in the area along the bank of the Hocking River this land was also frequently traveled and hunted by the Shawnee and Delaware nations colonists didn't permanently settle the area until the 1790s and they found an abundance of game including deer elk turkey bears and an occasional bison in the mid-1800s the park was frequented by locals as a popular hiking and picnicking area by the early 1900's better roads and accessibility meant that the forests were under threat by lumbering operations but a few decades later the state purchased the land restored the forest and created the park that millions of people now enjoy each year the spectacular caves and rock shelters in this area were formed when soft layers of Blackhand sandstone sandwiched between harder layers eroded away over time I can through the narrow and steep stone passageways can be difficult enough during the summer let alone when it's completely iced over sometimes you just have to summon up your inner six year old every time I walk into this grotto and see the scraggy cliffs and Russian cascades I feel like I'm being transported back in time or across worlds into a mystical land a lot of people come during the summer months when the greenery of the hemlocks and the moss covered stones glow in the sunlight and when the ferns and wildflowers sprout from the soil but the cold season transforms Hawking hills into a real-life winter wonderland the stairs were even harder on the way up white seems really help there are lots of other beautiful places you can drive to in the area like Cantwell cliffs cockles Hollow Cedar Falls and Rock house today our destination was Ashe cave the path leading to this beautiful site is paved and fairly accessible to any visitor during the summer the flanking stone Bluffs and cool air almost give you a feeling of being indoors but during winter the elements make you remember that you're outside as the wind blew crystalline dust swirled down from above the thick snow covered every tree branch and pine needle in sight as we hiked the tall Bluffs and hemlocks dwarfed us in size and we were filled with a sense of wonderment winter wasn't coming it was already here at seven hundred feet in length 100 feet in depth and 9 storeys in height ash cave is an impressive sight to behold during any time of the year but it's truly spectacular during the winter when icicles clean from the rocky crevices and cliff faces above named after a huge pile of ash is found under the rocky overhang ash cave was once used as camping spot for indigenous Americans the largest pile ever found was said to be a hundred feet long 30 feet wide and 3 feet deep no one knows for sure the source of these piles but contained within where arrows animal bones pottery Flint during the cold season the ash cave waterfall forms a massive Tower of ice beneath it we've been here like five or six times but every time we come back it's so surreal it really is and this is actually the first place that we camped at and every time you come into ash cave it's so big that my brain kind of recoils and doesn't know how to gauge like exactly how big it is it's like my depth perception kind of goes off it's always like super surreal and you're just like is this real and it's especially so in the winter because you see the bright snow out there and then you see like the orange rocks and it's just such an incredible contrast of color yeah it's pretty cool too because there's pigeons actually sleeping in the rocks here and we heard them cooing and the sound the acoustics are incredible you could just hear it all throughout the whole thing yeah there was a dog earlier and he was on the other side we were over there and huh you just heard like this loud barks for her it's almost like a wolf or something what you don't see is on the opposite side of the camera there's all this graffiti on the walls kind of unfortunate but it's actually kind of cool too because some of them are from the 19th century and it's funny because all the names people scrawled in like into the 20th and 21st centuries they're all like chicken scratch but I guess back then they had a much higher standard of handwriting because that's like a typewriter that's my times new roman' looks like somebody it's like some effort and actually made a nice nice looking initial that is incredible I still remember being entranced by the yawning caves and colossal cliffs the first time I came camping here my eyes were open to just how spectacular the forces of nature could be parks like this are filled with visitors in the summer the sounds of children laughing and people chattering echo through the cliffs in the winter Hocking Hills feels desolate quiet and empty and it gives you a sense of solitude but as you gaze around watching the birds fluttering the trees swaying and the water rushing remember that the world around you is alive autonomous and continues on with or without you every year people see the same icy tower looming above them from the indigenous people who built fires here thousands of years ago to 21st century people like us each spring it melts away only to be formed the next winter like a new incarnation of the season a fresh embodiment of the spirit of winter always the same but ever-changing