Hocking Hills State Park

If you have never been to Hocking Hills, we consider this an absolute must add to your wish list of places to hike.  We parked in the main parking lot towards the road and got on the trail towards Old Man’s Cave.  This is a one-way trail so parking at the end of the lot near the road is best for starting the trail.  Within 1 mile of hiking through the rocks, we saw the Upper Falls, the Devil’s Bathtub and made it to Old Man’s Cave. From there, we continued on to the Lower Falls. It was only 1.5 miles total from the parking lot to Lower Falls.  Fair warning if you are adverse to steps, this is not the park for you- there are a lot of stairs. We did a total of 2.3 miles round-trip back to the truck.

Hocking Hills has multiple parking lots where you can access different trails. The Cedar Falls Trail is easy to access from the Cedar Falls parking lot.  The loop trail is only .6 miles total with quite a few stairs taking you down to the falls and back up to the parking lot. This was a short venture and totally worth it!

The first half mile of the ash cave trail is paved and handicap accessible.  The cave itself is monstrous with a small trickle of water streaming down from the rock above.  From the cave, you can take the half mile accessible path backwards, or you can continue on up the stairs to a view from the top back into the cave.  As you continue up the stairs, you will reach the ash cave rim trail that will take you on the second half of the loop back to the parking lot.

Conkles Hollow State preserve is outside of the state park .  The half mile gorge trail is handicap accessible, but dogs are not allowed.  The handicap accessible portion of the trail ends at about .5 miles, shortly after the grotto.  You can continue on the dirt and rock path, which is mostly without much elevation.  After another .2 miles the trail ends at a small trickling waterfall.  Overall, we consider this trail to be more peaceful than exciting.

We began our hike to whispering cave from the lodge parking lot .  From there it is .5 miles down and another .5 miles back up.  We would consider this to be a moderate hike because there are a lot of stairs.  Definitely not handicap accessible.  Dogs are allowed.

Cantwell cliffs are located north east of Hocking Hills State Park. The squeeze is a narrow set of stairs through the rock cliffs near the beginning of the trail.  There are a lot of uneven steps and elevation changes throughout this hike.  We took the rim trail to the Gorge Trail and hopped back on the rim trail and felt that we got a good view of the cliffs from the bottom and the top.  Overall, we did 1.25 miles and with all of the elevation changes it really got our heart pumping.

At Rock House, we parked at the lower parking lot and took the room trail for about a3 of a mile until we reached the stairs, heading down to the gorge trail.  At the bottom of the stairs, there are multiple entrances to the Rock House Caverns. The cavern is huge and for me I would recommend this hike and the Old Man Cave hike if you’re going to do any two in the park. Although this is a shorter trail at only 1 mile total, the elevation changes make it moderately difficult.