The Red Brick Times

Betsy and I spent this last weekend 15,000 years in the past. The six park gorges of the Hocking Hills State Park system preserve a post-ice-age climate of Hemlocks, ferns, lichens, mosses and rock formations that are ancient and primal in appearance and feeling. Overhang shelter caves dissolved from blackhand sandstone by percolating ground water in the 100-foot tall rock faces. Waterfalls and streams. Stream bottoms of million-year-old sea floor shale that underlays the sandstone. SE Ohio is about two weeks ahead of Cleveland in the season, and the violets, bluebells, daffodils, some tulips, forsythia and tulip trees are in full bloom. Grass is long, trees are blushed green in tiny leaves. Cantwell Cliffs, Rock House, Conkles Hollow, Old Man's Cave, Cedar Falls and Ash Cave have been known since the late 1700's. Cedar Falls once had a now-vanished grist mill. The State of Ohio began "collecting" them in the 1920's. The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Work Projects Administration "developed" them during the depression. Most of the existing trails were formalized at that time. The Northernmost three are slightly less developed and more remote (Cantwell Cliffs, Rock House, Conkles Hollow). The Southernmost three have more steps, walls, bridges, handrails (Old Man's Cave, Cedar Falls, Ash Cave). Ash Cave has a paved walkway along the center of the gorge that is wheelchair accessible. The Southern three are connected by a portion of the Buckeye Trail, a 1300-mile walking loop around Ohio that started taking form in the 1950's. The Medina Section begins at Findley State Park, goes through the Medina County Park system, through the Hinkley Reservation, and ends in the Cuyahoga County Metroparks Brecksville Reservation. Anybody want to go for a walk?
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