For nearly 60 years, Hocking Hills State Park has hosted an annual winter hike in late January. It’s a chance for locals and tourists alike to appreciate the beautiful scenery of the area from a different perspective – because who plans a hiking trip during winter, right? Southeastern Ohio, that’s who!
The 6-mile walk through visits some of the state park’s most famous sites, including Old Man’s Cave, Cedar Falls and Ash Cave. Visitors get to see sparkly frosted sandstone formations, light-refracting frozen waterfalls, and the 9-story walls of Ohio’s largest cave. Sometimes, the cold even turns Ash Cave’s little waterfall into a 100+ foot tall column of ice.
All in all, this is one local activity Athenians love just as much as visitors; it’s something of a townie tradition. In all, the Annual Winter Hike attracts over 5000 people from all over each year.
Details & Recommendations for the Annual Hocking Hills Winter Hike
Anyone who wants to participate can go to the Visitor’s Center, where hikes start continuously between 9am and 11am. The event is free. The trail starts at the park’s campground, then travels to the Upper Falls and Old Man’s Cave. This first part of the hike is guided, and you get to learn about the physical and cultural history of the area.
The remainder of the hike – on to Cedar Falls and ending at Ash Cave – you’re free to do at your own pace. Once at Ash Cave, park rangers will drive you back to Old Man’s Cave, where visitors can find refreshments to warm back up after that long hike.
This is not the time to slip on your sneakers and head out in a random jacket. Hocking Hill State Park’s official site recommends warm, water-resistant pants and coats, proper gloves and hats, and hiking boots that you have already broken in. It’s a 6-mile hike – this is not the time to figure out new shoes while slipping around icy stairs.
Grandma Gatewood: The Octogenarian Baddie of Hocking Hills State Park
The 6-mile section of trail you’ll walk is part of both America’s Discovery Trail and the North Country Scenic Trail, though it’s colloquially referred to as the Grandma Gatewood Trail. It’s named in honor of Emma Gatewood, from nearby Gallia County, Ohio, because she was awesome.
In 1958, at 70 years old, this woman hiked the entire Appalachian Trail by herself: Georgia to Maine. The next year she walked nearly 2000 miles between Missouri and Oregon just because. Between 1960 and 1963, she walked the Appalachian Trail twice more, and in between was a staple figure all over Ohio’s national and state park trails. It’s said that this 6-mile section of trail was always her favorite. She was actually the person who led the first ever Annual Winter Hike at Hocking Hills, and kept on doing it for 12 years. She died in 1973 at the age of 85.
Ancient Appalachia: A Little Bit About Ash Cave & Indigenous Peoples
Old Man’s Cave and Ash Cave are the most recognizable names when people mention the best sites to see at Hocking Hills. They’re really cool – both cultural and geological history behind these rock formations have created beautiful, unique, and ever-interesting scenery.
Ash Cave is a 700-foot long sandstone cavern located in the Black Hand Sandstone Gorge. Its shape, depth and central waterfall is the product of erosion from glaciation and Queer Creek, which, over time, undercut the sandstone wall until it created this huge rock shelter that’s 90 feet tall and 100 feet deep.
The cave is so named for all the ash white settlers found when they first came across the cave, the largest pile of which is said to have been 100 feet long, 3 feet high and 30 feet across. And the story behind that ash gives us a peek into how important the site was to local Native American tribes - for centuries.
Aside from ash on the surface of the ground, there are actually strata of ash alternating with sands under the surface. This means it was used heavily over long enough periods for it to be buried by time and then used again. What’s more, there were two burials found at the site during a late-19th century excavation; people wrapped in tapestries with containers of seeds of local domesticates as well as stone tools placed alongside.
It’s impossible to recover and properly analyze what was done in that initial excavation, but these things all point to Ash Cave being an important gathering place for ancient indigenous people who lived in the Hocking, Scioto and Flint Ridge areas. Kind of appropriate it’s still a sort of gathering place, right?
Old Man’s Cave: Prehistoric Geology & the Identity of the Old Man
Old Man’s Cave is part of a sandstone gorge. It’s also the result of millions of years of erosion through glaciation and the activity from Salt Creek. Because sandstone is such a porous type of rock (it’s literally just compressed sands, silts and minerals), it erodes easily into smooth shapes, creating beautiful divot patterns, archways and exposed layers of Black Hand Sandstone, which reveal colorful red, grey, pink, and orange striations that reflect the movement of the Appalachians over those millions of years.
Okay, but who is the Old Man? This story may or may not be true, but who doesn’t love a local Appalachian legend? Supposedly, a travelling hermit named Richard Rowe lived in the cave around 1796, having traveled all the way from Cumberland, Tennessee to settle in Hocking Hills. He is supposedly buried in or near the cave. But just like Ash Cave, Old Man’s Cave shows evidence of use by Native, and later White, people for hundreds of years prior, highlighting the welcoming, abundant usability of the landscapes in this corner of Ohio.
Hocking Hills State Park is an awesome trip any time of year, but why not switch it up and experience the other side of its beauty in January? So bundle up, grab your grippiest hiking boots, and head over to Hocking Hills on January 21st; it’s a beautiful hike and an experience unique to Southeast Ohio.