Cuyahoga Valley NP in northern Ohio is so very different from all of the other parks in the NPS system. It is a truly suburban park that integrates many small towns, numerous roads and highways, four reservations, and eleven county parks to go along with its countless attractions. And, it’s a free one – as in no entrance fee!
The NPS maintains 125 miles of hiking trails; 60 miles of all-purpose trails for biking (Century Cycles for rentals), skating, and walking; and 47 miles of trails for horseback riding. The Cuyahoga River is accessible for kayaking (bring your own) and fishing, and during winters, downhill skiing and tubing are available on three separate slopes, and hiking trails provide exceptional cross-country skiing and snowshoeing opportunities. The favored trails include the Brandywine Falls hike (1.4 miles) which tours the park’s most iconic waterfall through a lovely old growth forest and the Ledges hike (2.7 miles from Happy Days Lodge), an oblong trek around, on top of, and through sandstone cliffs hidden by a hemlock forest – with lots of notches and “caves” to explore. In the southern part of the park, a nice boardwalk meanders through and along Beaver Marsh on the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail – and past an old lock. Snakes, muskrats, beavers, and all sorts of birds call this wetland home. Other hikes to consider are the Blue Hen Falls hike (.5 or 3 miles), another nice waterfall through old-growth forest, and the Deep Lock Quarry hike (1.2 miles), which encompasses the park’s deepest canal lock, a sandstone quarry, and cobbled millstones that never left the quarry (Ohio’s Stonehenge?).
For history lovers, Hale Farm & Village is an outdoor living history museum that displays a premier collection of artifacts (paintings, textiles, militaria, and Shaker items) from the Western Reserve Historical Society. Art lovers will appreciate and enjoy Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens, a seventy acre estate that includes five historic buildings, ten fully restored historic gardens, and a collection of furnishings that are ninety-five percent original to the estate. Train lovers (and who isn’t?) will relish a ride through the river valley on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. Bird lovers will want to stop along Bath Road in the southern part of the park to view a large collection of great blue heron nests.
