Cuyahoga National Park

Cuyahoga National Park is situated between Cleveland and Akron, Ohio along the Cuyahoga River. The Cuyahoga River was the site of a 1969 environmental disaster when a train spark lit the river on fire revealing the polluted nature of the river. This became the catalyst for the formation of the Environmental Protectation Agency in the United States.

On our first day we set up camp at the Streetsboror/ Cleveland KOA and headed into the park. We made our way to Brandywine Falls. This is an easy and mostly accessible walk to the upper viewing deck. If you want to go to the lower viewing deck it is about 80 steps. There is an additional loop hike of about 1.4 miles.

Our second day we drove to the Boston Mill Visitor Center and got our sourvenier and chatted with the park rangers. We decided to check out the Ledges Trail as our bigger activity on this cloudy and somewhat rainy day. The Ledges Trail is the #1 hike that we would recommend in Cuyahoga National Park. From the parking lot, we made our way to the beginning of the traill. we used our AllTrails map to make our way to the ice box cave which is closed to protect the bats.  This is an important starting point because you want to make sure and take the inner trail through the slot type caverns to be able to get the full effect of the magnificent split in the rock. The entire trail is an oval shape and you can take many paths back to the parking lot or continue and do the full loop.

From there we stopped at the Everett Covered Bridge whic is a super easy walk out to the pretty bridge and the river. We also stopped at Szalay's Market, one of three farms that are on leased land in the park. We stocked up on fresh fruits and veggies and definitely recommend their fresh juice.

We took one of our days to ride the Cuyahoga Scenic Railroad. This was a bit of a dissapointment because the railroad is only running from the Peninsula Station to Akron. There is more to see by driving and this didn't take us to any other parts of the park that we can't see from the car. One thing that is interesting, anyone can stand on the tracks and wave their arms at the super slow moving train and it will stop and you can ride to the stating for only $5.00. This is sometimes used by hikers and bikers to get a ride back after their adventures.

On our last day we started at the north end of the park at Great Falls of Tinker Creek. This is an easy .6 mile walk to a very impressive waterfall. There is free parking and access to the waterfall is through Viaduct Park. 

From there we jumped on the Gorge Parkway. Just down the road is Bridlevail Falls. From the parking lot you walk back across the street and it is a very short .35 miles round-trip to the falls.  There are quite a bit of stairs, but don’t let that deter you from this hike.