Really doesn't fit my (pre)conception of Ohio; looks like a neat place, reminds me of places in southern Il. (Makanda).
Great tree pics too!

Hocking Hills is an awesome park and you are correct - it doesn't look like Ohio at all. We lived in OH close to 30 years and raised our children there and went to Hocking Hills many times. We camped there as well. I can't even find words to describe how beautiful and unique this park is

That photo is amazing, I like how the young tree is growing right out of it.

Beautiful!

Southeastern Ohio is just beautiful. It doesn't look like any other part of Ohio. We're from the southwest part which is hilly too but very populated. Ohio University is about the only concentrated population in SE Ohio.

I had to go look Hocking Hills up. What a landscape! Great series of pics Tiffany.

I had no idea so many people would notice. TY so much for the kind compliments about the pics, but IMVHO, mother nature deserves all of the credit!

There's no place I've ever seen that I love more. Used to live close enough for day trips. SE OH is more like W VA than the rest of OH. The glacial escarpment runs through there.

I didn't know we were "almost" neighbors at one time - small world, huh?

'glacial escarpment runs through there' - meaning the glacier stopped before getting to the park?

That's what happened to the southern Il. spot I referred to above. When you get to that moraine in southern, it marks the most southern spot attained of the 4 glaciers that invaded the state. Southern Illinois is actually part of the Shawnee National Forest and remains of the Ozark Mountains make up the un-Illinois type landscape. A state park called Giant City there reminds me of your park.

'4 glaciers that invaded the state' - meaning long after the glaciers completely disappeared, a state was defined and then declared to have been invaded?
sorry--just a bit of harassment!


Great series of pics Tiffany!
What an enchanting place--thank you for sharing

Hilarious, TY for the entertaining comments & kind compliments! Actually, Michigan did invade north OH back in the day, (causing a feud that persists in the form of the football rivalry) but IDK of any other actual invasions. ;) Well, besides the emerald ash borer beetle...

According to dictionary, escarpment: a long, steep slope, especially one at the edge of a plateau or separating areas of land at different heights.

That's the word I've read to describe the boundary of where the land is flat, vs. where the (last?) glacier pushed the land in front into hills and buckles. The deep gorge where I took the pics (Old Mans' Cave state park) was created by erosion through soft rock due to glacial melt.

A friend and I were hiking down there one day in the 90's and it started raining hard. We weren't sure how fast it would fill up the gorge, so we ran like natives the last 2 miles to get out of there ASAP.

Enchanting - perfect word, I agree!

GREAT photo's and they are all making me homesick. I love the caves there as well and remember the devil's bathtub? It was like a really weird whirlpool.

I was under the impression that the glaciers leveled the land they covered. The hills/rivers/cliffs were already there complements of multitudes of years of erosion. They're still there if not glaciated. Glacier melt would possibly add erosion potential where run-off was present in a large enough volume. Often meltwater would form massive lakes behind end moraines that later time would erode and release torrents of massive water flow influencing some topographical features.

At any rate, great pictures. If ever in that part of Ohio, I would sidetrip to vist that area.

TY, Vicki. Yes! My son was fascinated by that! How long has it been since you were there? I feel the same way looking at those pics. It would be so awesome to be doing that hike right now, without a thought of anything else but the natural beauty and enjoying the companionship of whoever your companion(s) might be. Sometimes just the trees and ferns, critters, that's always good too.

About 10 yrs ago, a friend and I heard one of those giant rocks fall, so close but not visible around a bend. Hope I never have the misfortune of being any more involved in that, than that.

When I had a sales rep job, I had that area covered tight! Any excuse to visit in the name of sales = "free" (gas already paid for) time in the park if I scheduled things right.

That timeline is very telling...
Civil War>Hawking Valley Railroad established>OSU Football Program started>Wright Brothers fly the first airplane

We've been here since '98 so it was at least mid 90's since we've been there. Hubby's sister and her dh go every year in the fall - they live in Cincinnati and our youngest daughter and her family are still in Ohio and go there too.

I just googled devil's bathtub Hocking Hills and many photo's of it came up. I was always afraid I would fall in

We lived about 3 hours from there but it was such a beautiful drive to get there and we always had so much fun. When we went in the fall, we would time it during the pumpkin festival in Chilicothe.

I can't thank you enough for these wonderful memories.

"I was under the impression that the glaciers leveled the land they covered. "
Yes, the escarpment is the line where the glacier stopped. The park is in unglaciated land. No doubt there were already streams and valleys that were wildly changed by glacial melt. TY for helping things to be more specific.

(Just wish someone had proofread. Due, not do (at the bottom.)

If approaching from the north, it's flat as a pancake, then all of a sudden, there's a line of hills.
http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/K...


http://www.ohiohistorycentral....

It runs northward, toward Cleveland area.
http://www.nps.gov/cuva/planyo...

It's fascinating stuff, if personally interesting.
"Strangest of all was the division line between these two areas. It was as if the roughly square-shaped state of Ohio had been folded diagonally from the northeast to the southwest corners, and half the state had received the same erosion as the Allegheny-Appalachian highland. The other half, however, had been worn smooth into what scholars call the Erie Plain - and nonscholars call corn-hog country. But the fold or division line between the two areas remains even today as one of the astounding features of Ohio’s landscape. It rises in a sheer escarpment two to five miles wide, a jagged scar from northeast to southwest. Beginning near Erie, Pennsylvania, it runs along the shore of Lake Erie to Cleveland. There it forms Cedar Hill at University Circle and the cliff border of North Park Boulevard. Thence it jogs erratically southwest to the Ohio River and on into Kentucky and Tennessee."
- copied from http://web.ulib.csuohio.edu/el...

"At any rate, great pictures. If ever in that part of Ohio, I would sidetrip to visit that area." TYVM! Yes, I recommend it as strongly as one can.

Vicki, yes, the pumpkin festival is so awesome! Here's a 950-pound'er, 2004 I think.

Wow! Awesome pumpkin indeed!

Timeline says all you need to know about Ohioans and Buckeyes.