Midwest Adventure: Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Views of the Valley

Now, let's talk about Cuyahoga Valley National Park (National Park #3 on this trip; #55 in my lifetime) ...

But, first, a back story ...

Wellborn

A couple of weeks before our trip, I got a call out of the blue from a colleague from ages ago at GTE Directories. Wellborn Jack, one of my favorite past employees, now lives in Hudson, Ohio. I mentioned to Wellborn that we were heading in his direction as part of our Midwest National Parks tour and he offered to be our guide at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It turns out that his home is just minutes from the National Park and he is very familiar with the area. How perfect was that? Of course, I accepted his offer immediately. What a great guide he turned out to be! 

And, what fabulous host he and his lovely wife, Mary, were. They invited us over to his beautiful home for dinner with his family twice! 

Before we arrived, Wellborn sent me a giant stack of books and brochures about Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I read up (I really did scan them all) on the way there. So, I was ready for my Ohio National Park tour. 

Cuyahoga Valley National Park is the one of the newer parks in the NPS system. It was established in 1974 as the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area designated as a National Park in 2000. 

Wellborn and Mary graciously (and they are particularly gracious people) invited us the stay with them, but we had already made reservations at the Silver Fern Bed and Breakfast right by the National Park. It was a nice option for the area. I had researched camping, but everything I saw looked liked those miserable RV parks where everything is crammed together. The Silver Fern was small (and empty except for us), but it was comfortable and very convenient.

A pretty place

But, I am getting ahead of myself. Before we ever made it to Cuyahoga Valley or the Silver Fern, we made an important stop. Homemade peach and homemade cherry ice cream. Yum!

Real Midwest ice cream

Now, where was I?

According to Wikipedia, Cuyahoga Valley National Park is a very urban National Park. It reclaims the rural landscape along the Cuyahoga River between Cleveland and Akron in northeast Ohio on the historic route of the Ohio & Erie Canal. 

Map: NPS

Before the canal was built, Ohio was a sparsely settled wilderness where travel was difficult and getting crops to market was nearly impossible. 

The canal, built between 1825 and 1832, provided a transportation route from Cleveland on Lake Erie to Portsmouth on the Ohio River. The canal opened up Ohio to the rest of the settled eastern United States. Cuyahoga Valley National Park still has the ruins of the canals and locks. 

The Valley became a recreation area for urban dwellers in the 1870s when people came from nearby cities for carriage rides or leisure boat trips along the canal. In 1880, the Valley Railroad became another way to escape urban industrial life. Actual Park development began in the 1910s and 1920s with the establishment of both the Cleveland and the Akron Metropolitan Park districts. 

In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps built much of the park's infrastructure. Although the regional parks safeguarded many areas, by the 1960s locals began to fear that Cleveland's urban sprawl would overwhelm the Cuyahoga Valley's natural beauty and historical significance. They joined forces with state and national government staff to find a long-term solution. 

You might recall that the Cuyahoga Valley was an industrial nightmare. The Cuyahoga River actually caught fire in 1969, which really underscored the dangers of toxic waste in America's natural areas. 

Cuyahoga Valley National Park is very much about reclaiming damaged and dangerous resources, returning them to their natural state.

Another Park!

After a great deal of cleanup, the Cuyahoga Valley area was established as a National Recreation Area in 1974. Congress then re-designated the NRA as a National Park in 2000. But, as an urban Park, it has some unique administrative practices: some areas in the Park are still operated in conjunction with Cleveland Metro Parks. 

Maybe they also knew in the heart of hearts that, eventually, the U.S. government would change the name of North America's tallest mountain back to Denali from McKinley and Ohio would lose its only national park link. Maybe.

When we first arrived, we did a little exploring, stopping at Indigo Lake, a very pastoral pond just minutes from the major highways that pass by the park. It was a very still, hot, humid day, so there wasn't any wildlife to photograph.

Pastoral

We moved on to the Everett Covered Bridge, which was built over Furnace Run after a local died while crossing the ford there. It's a very pretty reminder of the past. It was originally built in 1876 and repeatedly damaged in storms and floods. In 1975, it was finally damaged beyond repair. It was then rebuilt in 1986 and is open to foot and bicycle traffic. It originally carried cars, but had to be restricted so that the restoration would be "pure." To carry cars, it would need steel supports, but the restorers wanted the original wood construction.

Miswestern staple

On the way back from the bridge, which is on a dead-end road, we stopped at the Hale Village and Farm, one of several working interpretive farms in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It was closed for the day and I could find no signs with operating hours. Oh well!

Then, it was on to Blue Hen Falls, which is formed when Spring Creek drops 15 feet over Berea Sandstone to a layer of Bedford Shale below. It's a rather small waterfall and, at this point in the summer, water levels were low. I have seen photos with a lot more water. But, still, it was pretty and peaceful.

Waterfall

Then, off to dinner with the wonderful Jack family before our full tour the next day.

The next morning, Wellborn took us to the Beaver Marsh area, which is along the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail. The trail runs almost 21 miles along the Cuyahoga River from Rockside Road in the north to Akron in the south. The towpath, of course, was a route used by mules to tow the barges traveling up and down the river and canals. The barges carried sandstone, crops, supplies and, often, extra mules. The canal system was developed fairly late in the game and was, consequently, not used for very many years before it became obsolete. 

Great Blue Heron

This Beaver Marsh, traversed by a boardwalk, shows the value of protecting the land. In the 19th century original wetlands were drained to allow for development -- and, over time, the area filled with industrial debris.

Wetlands

In 1984, the Sierra Club and NPS organized a site cleanup, hauling away car parts, bed springs and accumulated trash. While the NPS was contemplating how to use the land (one idea was building a parking lot), beavers started returning to the Valley after a 100-year absence. 

They built a system of dams that flooded the area, taking it back to its original state. Then, many animals that had also also been gone for a long time started to return. 

The marsh was teeming with wildlife. I spent a long time photographing a Green Heron as it caught and ate small Bluegills. It was interesting to watch the bird disengage to fish from its beak, turn it around and gulp it down. We saw the Heron do it several times.

Lunch!

Another treat was a log full of juvenile Wood Ducks. They posed nicely for us, with just a few minor protests at being photographed.

Cuties

There was a Great Blue Heron that stood stock still for a long time ...

Regal

... before moving a bit farther down the way. It also loved being photographed ...

Not so regal

Great Blue Herons are a big success story at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The first record of Great Blue Herons nesting there was in 1985. Now there are three active heronries in Cuyahoga Valley with about 200 active nests each year. We were too late to see any nesting birds.

By August, all the young birds have fledged. Nests are typically 30 to 70 feet high in trees surrounded by water. 

We didn't see any beavers as we watched the wildlife from the boardwalk, but we did see a Muskrat ...

Look at those teeth

 ... a Midwest Painted Turtle ...

Sunning

... and a submerged very large Common Snapping Turtle (trust me, that's a turtle) ...

Underwater

So, it was a very successful wildlife shooting session. 

Next, we went to the Deep Lock Quarry area, where we walked around atop an old sandstone quarry and saw the remnant of the natural resource that was used in so much building in the Midwest in the 1800s. Wellborn said that this had been a favorite spot for family picnics when his kids were young.

Old quarry

The Deep Lock still had a little water in it and was occupied by a couple of baby Common Snapping Turtles. Since the locks are no longer used, water doesn't necessarily run through them anymore. Various pieces of old equipment are lying around in the area, slowly deteriorating.

Industrial becomes natural

We then moved on to Ritchie Ledges, where cool, moist hemlock and yellow birch forest benefit from a microenvironment formed near the over 300-million-year-old rock formations. It is among these enormous blocks of the orange and yellow rock that you can find "Ice Box Cave," so-called because of the cool air that blows out of it. The actual cave is now closed to protect it, but we walked around the cool moss-covered rocks in the area.

Pretty green

It has a very storybook look to it and, even on a hot day, offered a cool respite.

View of the Park

And, although there wasn't a lot of wildlife, we did find a brightly colored caterpillar. Wellborn picked it up on a stick so that we could take a better look and then moved it so that I could get better pictures. 

Warning!

We wondered aloud if it might be a stinging caterpillar. Opting for the cautious approach, we assumed it was. Later, when I Googled it, I discovered that it was an Io Moth Caterpillar as in, "Warnings About Io Moth Caterpillar Stings," and "Poison Control Center." 

So, there's that!

Our final stop for the day was Brandywine Falls, Cuyahoga's Valley National Park's signature waterfall. It is reached via a Boardwalk.

Boardwalk

At this beautiful falls, Brandywine Creek drops 65 feet over a moss-covered ledge. A layer of hard Berea Sandstone caps the waterfall, protecting softer layers of 350-400-million-year-old Bedford and Cleveland shales below. 

Brandywine Falls

Early settlers in the valley used the falls for power. Starting in 1814, the falls powered a sawmill, then a gristmill and then a woolen mill. The Village of Brandywine, which grew around the mills and was one of the earliest communities in the valley, is now mostly gone, lost to the construction of nearby Interstate 271. 

We had not originally planned to take the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad, which travels along the river, because it wasn't operating the day we were there. But after our day's tour, we made reservations for the next morning, planning to arrive just a little later at our next stop in Cincinnati.

So, we got up very early to travel to the station on the north side of the park. On the way, we stopped at Bridal Veil Falls, a 30-foot cascade rather than what I consider a typical bridal veil wisp dropping from a great height. It was very calm and pretty (plus lower in water volume than a lot of the pictures I have seen).

The creek

We also stopped at the Ledges Overlook, which is one of the few places you can get an unobstructed view of the Cuyahoga Valley.

Overlook

Like Voyageurs, Apostle and Isle Royale, I think Cuyahoga Valley National Park is probably at its best in the fall. It was on its way, but not yet there.

Fall is coming

And, about the train ... We got to the train station, but realized that the dome car we had reserved (and, in fact, all the cars) had very streaky, dirty windows that did not open. Therefore, photography would be impossible. So, we decided to skip the train and drive south.

Our next stop was Cincinnati, but not without stopping (at Mary's recommendation) at Grampa's Cheesebarn in Norton, Ohio. A fabulous selection of cheeses, pickles, meats and goodies. We bought a couple of things and headed on our way.

Grampa's

Trip date: August 12-September 5, 2016