If you have been following along here, you know that our family tradition is to go for a hike on Wednesdays since it’s the only day of the week that one or both adults don’t work outside the home. A couple weeks ago I saw a little graphic online that predicted the peak fall foliage for this area, so we planned to do a day trip to Hocking Hills for our Wednesday hike! My parents jumped on the chance to join us and this past Wednesday, we did it!
If you haven’t ever been to Hocking Hills, it’s an Ohio state park in the middle of nowhere, Southwestern Ohio. It has camping, cabins, hiking…and not too much else haha. It’s beautiful in every season. I’ve even been in the winter and thought it was beautiful, and that is saying a lot coming from me (I am not a fan of winter).
Shockingly, the weather was BEAUTIFUL! Normally, we have already had a snow flurry and we usually have the coats/hats/gloves out by Halloween. But this year, late summer has lingered and it was almost 80 degrees on October 30th! Unheard of!
We left our house at 8am and drove the two hours to Hocking Hills, arriving around 10am at the main visitor center. The main Hocking Hills trail has several attractions there- Upper Falls, Devil’s Bathtub, Old Man’s Cave and Lower Falls. This trail is just under two miles, but a lot of steps and a lot of uneven terrain, so it’s labeled as a difficult hike. I would say it’s moderate since we weren’t using any climbing gear or crawling on our hands and knees lol. The downside of this trail is that it attracts ALL the people and can get very crowded. This was a random Wednesday at the end of October and there were at least 50 people on the trail with us, plus two huge school groups of at least 100 kids.
Upper Falls
Upper falls are about a 2 minute walk from the parking lot, and is an iconic part of the park. Unfortunately, there was almost no water coming over the “falls”.
Devil’s Bathtub
Devil’s bathtub is a short way down the trail. It is a really cool, deep pool of water that looks like a bathtub. The sign says that if you get in it, it’s nearly impossible to get out. All I know is that as a Mom, it made me nervous!
Old Man’s Cave
The next main attraction on the trail was Old Man’s Cave. This is an incredible cave in the rock face that has lots of legends told about it. Apparently, it was a hermit destination and several hermits lived in the cave (not at the same time, obviously ;)). It is beautiful, but by far the most crowded part of Hocking Hills in my opinion.
Lower Falls
Last, we found Lower Falls. Which was more like Lower “trickle” or Lower “drip” since it has been SO dry in Ohio for the last 3 months.
After lower falls, there is a CLIMB back to the parking lot. And I do mean climb!! There are tons of steps and it winds in and out through the sandstone/limestone(?) rock walls.
This hike took us almost two hours, but there was a lot of stopping and taking pictures, waiting for people to pass and pausing to catch our breath as we climbed the really steep steps!
After that hike, we found a nice picnic table and ate the lunch we had packed and brought since there is not a lot of food options around Hocking Hills.
After lunch, we drove the 5 minute drive to Rose Lake. Some of the reviews about this trail said it was so underrated and beautiful. We had the hardest time finding it, but the reviews were right…it was a BEAUTIFUL hidden gem! And we only saw maybe 5 other people on the whole trail! Ori fell asleep in the van, so Theo stayed with Ori while the rest of us hiked the 1.7 mile loop around the lake. This was my favorite hike of the trip by far!
We finished up that hike and we were feeling TIRED! We wanted to see Ash Cave and knew that the hike was easy peasy (less than 0.5 miles) with some stunning views. We drove the 15 minutes to Ash Cave, hiked in and out. This cave can get crowded, but when we were there it wasn’t bad at all- maybe two or three other families were in there with us.
And that’s a wrap on our day trip to Hocking Hills, OH! If you live within driving distance, I highly recommend this as a day or weekend trip!
I’m linking up with Friday Favorites because Hocking Hills and family hikes are a FAVORITE!
I can’t wait for my next hike! We plan to go to the Palo Duro Canyon in Texas. There are a lot of trails to choose from. I was trying to pick which trail I wanted to hike. Thank you for showing me that maybe I can hike several trails while we are there and I don’t have to choose just one:)