for our 2024 summer road trip, we took a three week tour up to and around michigan, mostly in the upper peninsula, a part of the country that we haven’t seen yet. and we managed to find a few cool spots to check out on the way up. the first such location was hocking hills state park in ohio.
but first. we loaded up the (brand spanking new) minivan. so spacious.
hocking hills has been on my radar for awhile. basically, at some point way back on the geological timeline, a soft layer of sediment, sandwiched between two harder layers, was washed away by glacial flooding. this made for all manner of cool hiking amenities… jagged cliffs, pretty waterfalls, fun bridges, and hollow caves and tunnels, all with very little elevation change.
we went on several short hikes over the course of two days there. it was very peopley and the whole place was pretty graffitied up, which is always disappointing. our first stop was the ash cave trail, outside the main part of the park.
the main part of the park has a network of trails, some of them one way, that we strung together to see a bunch of cool stuff. i will spare you the commentary because i don’t really remember much about this visit. it was all so whirlwind. so here’s a zillion pics.
we stayed overnight in a super fancy pants lodge in the park. and on the way out of town in the morning, we hit up another trail outside of the main part of the park, called rock house rim trail. first though, we had to pass the gauntlet of what can only be described as the sketchiest pit toilet situation i’ve ever encountered, allowing us the opportunities to practice all of our teen slang, like “skibidi toilet ohio” in the only situation where it actually made sense. then we were off….
the actual hike was ok. pretty. but the real payoff is the rock house.
in the middle of the hike, we wandered into an opening in the rocks, which opened up to reveal a gigantic cavernous space, probably filled with bats. we climbed and explored for awhile. took all of the pics. discussed how cool this place was. and for good measure, there was some crying, if i remember correctly.
we had some time sensitive commitments, so we couldn’t dwell in the cave for too long. we hiked back out and finished the loop and sped off to our next adventure.
