Hocking Hills State Park

About this place

Hocking Hills State Park is a state park in the Hocking Hills region of Hocking County, Ohio, and its Old Man's Cave area lies about 17 km in a straight line south-west of the town of Logan. It has more than 40 km of hiking trails, rock formations, waterfalls and recess caves, and the trails are open from dawn to dusk all year round. More than 330 million years ago the area was covered by sea, whose currents laid down huge amounts of sand and gravel; the sea then receded, and over millions of years groundwater and streams eroded the soft sandstone into towering formations and waterfalls. After glaciers melted about 10,000 years ago, the landscape changed dramatically again. The park has six main hiking areas: Ash Cave, Cantwell Cliffs, Cedar Falls, Old Man's Cave, Rock House and Whispering Cave. Waterfalls spill over walls of orange sandstone into small pools, and at Old Man's Cave the trail passes huge rocks and stone bridges over the Devil's Bathtub, beneath dense hemlock and ferns. Visiting is free. The trails are crowded at weekends, especially in autumn, and the rocks are wet and slippery, so keep to marked trails and stay back from cliff edges.