Slowly Processing

Finally getting around to processing some of my images from our weekend at Hocking Hills. This one is from the Lower Falls, which I agree with Scott, is a fantastic location. I believe I still like Ash Cave a little better but this place is also high on my list.

Rainy Days and Sundays . . .

We weren't going to let the rain make us sad, so we started out the day heading to Ash Cave which was covered and protected us from the rain. Ash Cave is named after the huge pile of ashes found under the shelter by early settlers. The largest pile was recorded as being 100 feet long, 30 feet wide and 3 feet deep. The source of the ashes is unknown, but is believed to be from Indian campfires built up over hundreds of years.

After getting to a point that we could no longer feel our fingers, we decided to head back to the hotel and get dry and warm. The afternoon we headed to Athens for some indoor creativity and visited the Dairy Barn Art Center http://www.dairybarn.org/ and Kennedy Museum of Arts http://www.ohio.edu/museum/ at Ohio University. The Dairy Barn opened a new exhibition on Friday entitled OH +5 which featured artists from Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. It was a wonderful exhibit and included a variety of media and techniques.

Our day ended with a great and inexpensive meal at Jack's Steakhouse in Logan. Tomorrow we are heading to Lower Falls before returning home.

Hocking Hills State Park

Striking a pose at Upper Falls

Saturday - January 16, 2010 began with a hike from Hocking Hills Welcome Center - Old Man's Cave entrance to Cedar Falls (2.5 miles). During the week before the temperature had been rising which made the trail very icy and muddy which caused unstable footing for us and the 1,000 plus people that were there for the 45th Annual Winter Hike. The state park had continuous starts of people leaving from the visitor's center all morning. Half way through the trail, they provided refreshments and for us shuttle bus returns.

Cedar Falls was a beautiful spot where we spent some time taking in the scenery, snapping some wonderful photographs of the falls and watching people. Many, many people!

After leaving the falls we boarded the oasis of school buses that were waiting to take us back to Old Man's Cave to our car. We were all feeling like old men and women and didn't think we could make the +2.5 mile trek back on the trail. In the summer we probably could have, but with the ice, snow and mud we encountered on the trail every step of the way, we were exhausted. We were never so happy to see those yellow school buses.

After having a great lunch at the Millstone BBQ http://www.millstonebbq.com/ we headed back out to the park to take the trail from the Upper Falls to Old Man's Cave. Upper falls is pictured above with all of us. Below is a picture of the water fall at Old Man's Cave, and our group's "old man" breaking off a chunck by accident from the waterfall. Oops.

This last picture was taken inside one of the caves. We learned a lot about how to take this photo including that you can set the timer on a Canon longer than 10 seconds, unfortunately is was after the photo was taken!