This is the collected and revised edition of posts about Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Is took a while to get through all the photo posts and write blurbs so I hope you enjoy the effort to gather them together with an attempt at a narrative thread. It still required quite a bit of copy to transition the parts as well as get it to make some sort of sense as a documentary style story. Two dozen photos and 1600 words is my largest article on the platform.

Enjoy the pictures!

My father’s first sister lives close to me in the Chicago area, we left to make the drive East on the tollroad at a decent time on a Thursday morning. The both of us were headed to meet her younger sister near Akron, Ohio for a long weekend visiting Cuyahoga Valley National Park. My other aunt lives in western Pennsylvania and had a much shorter drive.

Straw House Along the Cuyahoga

When we pulled up on the house, I thought it was kinda unassuming. As things would turn out, where we stayed for the handful of days was an excellent base for us to stage our daily excursions.

We were in the area at the very beginning of autumn and these pictures are very seasonally oriented. I should have taken more pictures of the house, it had some nice features too. However, the real highlights of the trip were the waterfalls and foliage in my opinion.

Classic Cuyahoga

This picture encapsulates those fundamental aspects of our trip to Cuyahoga: color-changing leaves and running water.

I hope you get sense of what Cuyahoga Valley National Park has to offer from the photos I’ve selected for this article. It's definitely worth going during the autumn for the display the leaves put on. Also, some of the locations I was taking these pictures would likely be inaccessible in the spring when there is more water flowing, meaning higher creaking and streams.

This is Cuyahoga to me

As mentioned earlier, I went to this park with my aunts for a few days.

The picture above essentially sums up the highlights of the experience for me: hiking, foliage, waterfalls.

It was a very thorough trip, I'm sure there aren't many elements of the Cuyahoga Valley we left unseen.

Brandywine Falls

Wow, right?! Brandywine Falls are the "big show" at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I was able to get two solid angles that really show off the falls and the foliage around them.

This second image below was taken from the creek that is formed at the base of the falls. A lot of people had set up cairns here on the larger boulders dislodged from the "solid ground" forming that banks of the creek. This area was supposed to be off limits to visitors.

It took a while to make my way along the steep edge of the creek for at least a quarter mile to even get into position, I cut myself when I slipped on some moss. The humidity in the crevice was intense and fogged up my camera lenses almost immediately.

Blue Hen Falls

It's a short trail hike into the woods to find Blue Hen Falls. However, you'll need to be careful to get near the base of the falls that can be seen here. The overlook to the right of this angle is more or less the end of the officially maintained trail.

I imagine that most of these waterfalls have larger amounts of water flowing during the spring. Though the foliage won't be in full effect, so there are trade offs when you are selecting a time to visit.

My two Aunts

This is two of my aunts and me in Cuyahoga a few weeks ago. It was a nice time. We road bikes and hiked many trails that connect with the towpath.

We are in front of the Buttermilk Falls in this photo. Those first few days were all about waterfall hunting.

Looking over Tinker’s Creek Valley

We went up to the overlook by Tinker's Creek near or maybe in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Apparently this area with supposed to receive a dam to become a recreational reservoir but was popularly opposed in the 1960’s.

So, this view still exists for us to get a look at today!

Everett Covered Bridge

Everett Covered Bridge was about a 2 mile hike off the towpath. I don’t know for sure though, I'm just guessing. You could look it up. It's not that far and was totally worth the trail hike through the farmland. Here you can see the leaves were changing pretty decently.

In fact, the other picture of the creek and the changing foliage is from this same point just looking in the other direction.

Beautiful spot. I wandered through the water looking for shallow rocks to walk on to get decent photograph angles.

The Ledges

One of my favorite locations was The Ledges. Topographically, this area is an outcropping of rock that is above the surrounding field. However, because the forest in the area, it is difficult to interpret without visiting for yourself.

Bats frequent a section of crevices called “The Icebox”. This area look a lot like Endor…or maybe the Oregon coast for those of you not familiar with Star Wars. So many of the places we went were beautiful.

There were great trail ends and features all over Cuyahoga. But The Ledges have an atmospheric quality that is set apart. It can be eery at times or majestic, vast or crowded. The large exposed rock is clinically lifeless but the trees find a way to cling to the cliffs and create an ecosystem for the creatures that call it home.

All of us enjoyed this location, even the dogs. We stayed there until the sun began disappearing for the day. There was an excellent west-facing overlook. The article header image was taken at this location.

Goats at Sundown

These goats brought their owners out to The Ledges to watch the sun go down for the day.

So romantic...

Seriously though, the goats were on leashes and incredibly well-behaved. The animals were an unique addition to the crowd of humans that had been gathering with all their cameras for the sunset.

Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad

There is a train that runs along the west side of the Valley. It's a casual ride. You'll be able to see a number of the communities and features along the route.

However, if you want to actually get up close to anything in Cuyahoga, you'll need to get off the train to go hike or bike the towpath. A lot of trails extend off the old towpath that was used to guide canal boats along.

Train and Bridges of Cuyahoga

My aunts and I spent 3 hours on the train seeing the communities that are based along the canal. We rode in style via the St. Lucie Sound lounge car. Instead of the typical rows of seats, the lounge car only ha room 18 passengers to board. We received a sandwich and drink with our seats in the art deco era train car.

While the seating area offers decent views, they are quite distant compared to hiking and biking in-person. However, it is worth noting that this car also has a bar section that is currently being restored.

When it was built an artist has rendered murals in linoleum. In time, changing preferences in decor led to this mural being covered with carpet and strong adhesive to keep it in place.

As you can see, the restoration process has revealed beautiful scenes that were lost to passenger's eyes for decades. Doesn’t the girl look like Dora the Explorer?

My favorite views along the ride were the bridges. The best one in my opinion is the Brecksville—Northfield High Level Bridge. When we went by on the train I knew that I wanted to see it up close. Luckily the next day we did in fact go by that bridge on our bikes.

There’s a magnet of this bridge and area with the foliage changing. I took a picture in an attempt to replicate the view. What do you think?

Last day of the park

The day we prepared to leave the park was overcast but not too dark. We rode the towpath and hit a few landmarks as we headed generally north toward the tollroad where we would part ways and go off in opposite directions to return home.

Our last bike ride was through an area with vibrant foliage that made the forest a wash of green, yellow, orange and red. Light was catching through the leaves even though the sun was battling with the clouds that day.

Our last bit of hiking was near a ranger station with displays of flora and fauna that had been or could be found in its vicinity. Here are a few of those critters for you to get a look at too.

We took one last group selfie with the colorful leaves before giving each others hugs and saying goodbye to Cuyahoga.

Definitely recommend visiting the park because entrance is very low friction and it is cheap to enter....FREE!