Hocking Hills Winter Hike attracts thousands

By Rory Ryan
The Highland County Press

LOGAN – Thousands of hikers enjoyed a perfect mid-January Saturday and converged on Hocking Hills State Park for the 50th anniversary of the park’s annual winter hike today.

With a Jan. 17 temperature inching toward 50 degree – but much cooler for the early-morning hikers, more than 5,000 people packed the southeastern state park from Old Man’s Cave to Ash Cave for the six-mile trek, passing the Devil’s Bathtub, Cedar Falls, the A-Frame Bridge and natural tunnels.

The most popular of all the Hocking areas is Old Man's Cave, located on Ohio Route 664.

At the Upper Falls, the Grandma Gatewood Trail begins a six-mile course connecting three of the park's popular areas: Old Man's Cave to Cedar Falls to Ash Cave.

The trail has been designated as part of Ohio's Buckeye Trail as well as part of two national systems – the North Country Scenic Trail and America's Discovery Trail.

Among this weekend’s hikers were thousands who are veterans of the winter hike and many first-timers. For the veterans, many said that the Jan. 17 weather was as good as it’s ever been.

The hike typically begins between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. at Old Man’s Cave. However, due to a near record-setting crowd Saturday, the event got off to an understandably slow start. Parking at the Old Man’s Cave lot quickly filled up and visitors were shuttled by Hocking County school buses from nearby parking areas at the park lodge and campgrounds.

At the walk’s three-mile point – at Cedar Falls – volunteers from the Logan Kiwanis Club were ready with a serving of bean soup – made from more than 100 pounds of beans and 40 pounds of onions – along with cornbread and hot cocoa.

The warmer weather aside, this weekend’s hike still provided impressive views of ice formations from cave to cave, including several that were more than 50 feet in height.

After an initial delay of approximately an hour due to the considerable crowd, most hikers were free to move at their own pace.

* * *

Hocking Hills History

(From the Ohio Department of Natural Resources)

The hollows and caves of the park complex have long attracted the peoples of Ohio.

Evidence of the ancient Adena culture illustrates that man first inhabited the recesses more than 7,000 years ago.

In the mid-1700s, several Indian tribes traveled through or lived here including the Wyandot, Delaware and Shawnee. Their name for the river from which the park gets its name was Hockhocking of "bottle river." The name comes from the bottle-shaped valley of the Hocking River whose formation is due to its one-time blockage by glacial ice.

After the Greenville Treaty of 1795, numerous white settlers moved into the region and Hocking County was organized in 1818. The area around the park began to develop in 1835 when a powder mill was built near Rock House and a grist mill was constructed at Cedar Falls.

The cave areas were well-known as scenic attractions by 1870. In 1924, the first land purchase by the state was made to preserve the scenic features. This first parcel of 146 acres included Old Man's Cave. Subsequent purchases built acreage while the areas existed under the Department of Forestry as State Forest Parks.

The Department of Natural Resources was created in 1949 and the new Division of Parks assumed control of the Hocking Hills State Park complex, which today includes the six park areas. A dining lodge and cottages were opened in 1972. These cottages, together with a campground, provide overnight facilities in one of the most beautiful areas of our state.

Natural Features

The natural history of this region is as fascinating as the caves are beautiful. Here, in these sandstones and shales, one can read Ohio's history from the rocks. The scenic features of the six areas of the Hocking Hills State Park complex are carved in the Blackhand sandstone. This bedrock was deposited more than 350 million years ago as a delta in the warm shallow sea which covered Ohio at that time. Subsequent millions of years of uplift and stream erosion created the awesome beauty seen today.

The sandstone varies in composition and hardness from softer, loosely cemented middle zone to harder top and bottom layers. The recess caves at Ash Cave, Old Man's Cave and Cantwell Cliffs are all carved in the softer middle zone. Weathering and erosion widened cracks found in the middle layer of sandstone at the Rock House to create that unusual formation.

Other features of the rock include cross-bedding, honeycomb weathering and slump blocks. The first is noticeable as diagonal lines in the rock intersecting horizontal ones. It is actually the cross section of an ancient sand bar in the delta and was caused by changing ocean currents. Honeycomb weathering looks like the small holes in a beehive comb. They are formed by differential weathering which comes about when water, moving down through the permeable sandstone, washes out small pockets of loosely cemented sand grains. Finally, the huge slump blocks of rock littering the streams tumble from near by cliffs when cracks widen to the extent that the block is no longer supported by the main cliff.

Although the glaciers never reached the park areas, their influence is still seen here in the form of the vegetation growing in the gorges. The glaciers changed the climate of all Ohio to a moist, cool environment. Upon their retreat, this condition persisted only in a few places such as the deep gorges of Hocking County. Therefore, the towering eastern hemlocks, the Canada yew and the yellow and black birch tell of a cool period 10,000 years ago.

For information contact the Hocking Hills State Park office at 740-385-6842 or visit the website http://parks.ohiodnr.gov/hockinghills.