Hocking Hills - Ohio

Sorry it has been so long since I posted anything. Been down since December and just not up to posting. Will try to catch up over the next few weeks.

Visited Hocking Hills area of Ohio for 3-4 days. The area reminded me of Ithaca - Hocking also was part of the glaciers. The inn where I stayed was in the city of Lancaster, chef offers cooking school on the weekends; nice lady whose Dad owns the place. Only downside was that the staff was not happy; got to hear lots of complaints on Sunday night when the owners were 'out'. Food was really good! Many options on which type of room you want. However, there are tons of cabins that can be rented in the area of Logan. Some of the cabins have stables where you can put your own horse or rent one. Canoes and rip line tours too.

Hiking -- fantastic caves, cliffs, and waterfalls. You can walk in the gorges with some of the sites having 'wheelchair accessible' concrete paths in the gorges at least most if not all the way. There are trails connecting the different sites as well as rim trails. In addition to the official Hocking Hills State Park, there are other 'metro parks' and 'preservation areas' which all have great hikes.

My favorite was the hiking. Met alot of interesting people; different ones on each trail. The Russians who have lived in Cleveland for ~ 20 years - a couple who had brought each of their parents/aunts/uncles/as well as kids. A man who had met his three grandsons the week before and was taking care of them for the week when his son was on his honeymoon. The two younger boys (around 12 and 9) hiked with me back from Rock House. The couple who had raised a trout in an aquarium and were contemplating how to set it free now that it was 1 to 1.5 feet long; they were worried that it would not know how to eat 'in the wild'. They also had a couple cats - one of which had 'gone fishing' in their other aquarium and enjoyed some exotic goldfish for breakfast.

Taughannock Falls in December

Christmas Day skiing? Made it to the ski slope but did not go; first - did not have the "discount" first-timer coupon so would need to pay a higher price and second - people in the parking lot said the conditions were very icy. Decided it would not be the best condition to ski (or snowboard as I had been told it was not as demanding on quad muscles - Thanks J) for the first time of the year. Now that the weather will get in the low 50's/high 40's this weekend, the next ski opportunity may be in 2009.

So off to photo the waterfalls that I had missed on Sunday. Hiking at
Buttermilk Falls was possible - advise using the ski poles to avoid falling on the way down! The photos at Taughannock Falls were much better though! The trails on the north and south rim had been closed but you could hike the "river" path. Bad news was that the park facilities were closed and being Christmas not many other places open either. (Luckily one of the Chinese restaurants was having a Celebration Day! Xie xie ni!!)

Sorry Y.F. and T.N. - Have not made it South during December so no new photos or travel stories of driving adventures! Tentatively planning camping in NY mountains soon so maybe photos from there.

Second Official Day of Winter 2008

Last year in early December, I was seeing the Fall foliage in Japan. Now the second official day of winter 2008, I took photos of frozen waterfalls. With the windchill, I was advised that it would be much colder outside than I had thought. (Thanks J - I stayed quite warm!) So rather than driving to the Ithaca area, I went to waterfalls near Watkins Glen. Three locations were photoed and each was beautiful. Found out that there is zero tolerance from police for stepping over gates/fences to hike --- hundreds of dollars in fines. So hiking to get closer or different angles of the falls was not something that I tried.

After being an amateur photographer and test driving my car on the "seasonal road" along the East side of the lake, we went to the Watkins Glen Pier restaurant, sorry did not catch the actual name. Burger was good, but not as good as the bleu-cheese burger at the Wildflower; however, the view of the blue sky and blue water was nice.

Can also say that my car handled great on the seasonal and unploughed mountain/lake road. Learned how to use the auto-manual drive as we climbed the mountain road over ice and to not to go off the road into the marsh and creek! Thanks Pam for the advice as I drove the one lane seasonal road. We stayed out of the lake!

Waterfall of New York - not Niagra

What to do on a beautiful sunny day? Take a quiet hike on the north and south rim of Taughannock Fall. The waterfall is higher than Niagra Falls but as you can see, much less water. Beautiful area that I would highly recommend.

At times you feel that you are out west in one of the canyons.

One bit of advice ... unless you like to climb stairs ... go up the "south rim" and back down the "north rim". The overall hike distance is approximately 4-4.5 miles if you include the very easy portion along the water to the base of the falls.

All-in-all, it was a nice hike to begin enjoying all that Upstate NY has to offer.