Park office Location and Mailing Address:	19852 State Route 664 S Logan, Ohio 43138
Park Office Phone:	740.385.6842
Cottage Office Phone:	740.385.6841
Reservations for Camping, Cottages, Getaway Rentals and Picnic Shelters:	866.644.6727

Park Map | Campground Map | Cottage Area Map

Friends of Hocking Hills

Naturalist Schedules

• February 2010

Hocking Hills provides a variety of recreational opportunities in a splendid natural setting. Towering cliffs, waterfalls and deep hemlock-shaded gorges lure the hiker and naturalist and serve as a backdrop to popular facilities and accommodations.

Become a Trail Troll and help maintain our trail system 

Cottages 

• 40 gas-heated, air-conditioned, family housekeeping cottages sleep up to six persons
• Each cottage has two bedrooms (one with two twin beds; one with a double bed),
• Living room with a trundle sofa,
• Bath with a shower
• Gas-burning fireplace
• Complete kitchen including microwave
• Dining area
• Screened porch

Camping   

• 156 electric sites, with 20, 30 or 50 amp electric
• 13 non-electric sites
• Each site has a paved pad and can accommodate up to a 50' unit
• Heated showers
• Flush toilets
• Laundry facility
• Camp store
• Swimming pool for registered campers
• Playgrounds
• Volleyball court and horse shoe pit
• Tent-only group camps are available by reservation
• There are also 30 walk-in family sites with pit latrines.

Getaway Rentals 

• 3 Camper Cabins equipped with cots and bench beds, a cooler, stove and camp light
• Available May through October

Trails

• There are miles of hiking trails located throughout the park and adjacent state forest
• These trails are beautiful as well as potentially dangerous: caution and common sense are advised
• Young children should be closely supervised while in on the hiking trails
• All park visitors must remain on the marked trails at all times
• 9 hiking trails in the park
  • Ash Cave Gorge • 1/4  Mile • Easy • Handicap Accessible
  • Ash Cave Rim • 1/2 Mile • Moderate
  • Cedar Falls • 1/2 Mile • Moderate
  • Old Man's Cave • 1 Mile • Moderate
  • Conkles Hollow • 1 Mile • Easy • Handicap Accessible
  • Conkle's Hollow Rim • 2.5 Miles • Moderate
  • Rock House • 1/2 Mile • Moderate
  • Cantwell Cliffs • 1 Mile • Difficult
  • Buckeye Trail • 6 Miles • Moderate
• 2 mountain bike trails
  • Purple Trail Loop • 2 Miles • Moderate
  • Orange Trail Loop • 2 miles • Difficult
  • Print the map
• Portions of the Buckeye Trail go through the park and surrounding state forest

Picnicking  

• 5 picnic areas with tables, grills, latrines and drinking water are located at each of the recess caves
• Shelters are available at Old Man's Cave, Ash Cave, Rock House, Cedar Falls and Cantwell Cliffs  
• All picnic shelters can be reserved online or by calling 866-644-6727
• All 5 picnic areas are Carry In Carry Out areas • No trash cans are available • Please bring trash bags with you

Fishing

• A valid Ohio fishing license is required to fish in Rose Lake
• Access is off State Route 374 via a 1/2-mile hiking trail

Swimming

• The swimming pool outside the dining lodge open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, Memorial Day to Labor Day
• Registered cottage guests may use the pool for free
• It is open to the general public for a small daily fee

Winter Recreation (conditions permitting)

• Ice fishing

More To Do

• Archery range with 5 static targets and 22 3-D targets is open from daylight until dark year-round
• Special events and nature programs are offered year round
• Visitor center at Old Man's cave features interesting displays and a gift shop
• Rock climbing/rappelling area is available in the adjacent Hocking State Forest

Area Attractions

• Conkles Hollow, a state nature preserve, features scenic geologic formations and rare and unique plants. It is located off State Route 374, open during daylight hours only
• The Hocking Valley offers a variety of points of interest for visitors. Local attractions include craft and antique shops, museums, canoeing, horse back riding, a scenic railway, hiking trails and scenic drives
• Adena State Memorial, the restored home of Thomas Worthington is one of The Ohio Historical Society's premier sites. It includes Worthington's newly-restored 1807 mansion and a 13,000 square foot Museum/Visitor Center
• For more information contact the Hocking Hills Tourism Association at 800-HOCKING or 740-385-6836 Logan-Hocking Chamber of Commerce.

Nature of the Area

The natural history of this region is as fascinating as the caves are beautiful • Here, in these sandstones and shales, one can read Ohio's history from the rocks • The scenic features of the six areas of the Hocking Hills State Park complex are carved in the Blackhand sandstone • This bedrock was deposited more than 350 million years ago as a delta in the warm shallow sea which covered Ohio at that time • Subsequent millions of years of uplift and stream erosion created the awesome beauty seen today

The sandstone varies in composition and hardness from softer, loosely cemented middle zone to harder top and bottom layers • The recess caves at Ash Cave, Old Man's Cave and Cantwell Cliffs are all carved in the softer middle zone • Weathering and erosion widened cracks found in the middle layer of sandstone at the Rock House to create that unusual formation

Other features of the rock include cross-bedding, honeycomb weathering and slump blocks • The first is noticeable as diagonal lines in the rock intersecting horizontal ones • It is actually the cross section of an ancient sand bar in the delta and was caused by changing ocean currents • Honeycomb weathering looks like the small holes in a beehive comb • They are formed by differential weathering which comes about when water, moving down through the permeable sandstone, washes out small pockets of loosely cemented sand grains • Finally, the huge slump blocks of rock littering the streams tumble from near by cliffs when cracks widen to the extent that the block is no longer supported by the main cliff

Although the glaciers never reached the park areas, their influence is still seen here in the form of the vegetation growing in the gorges • The glaciers changed the climate of all Ohio to a moist, cool environment. Upon their retreat, this condition persisted only in a few places such as the deep gorges of Hocking County • Therefore, the towering eastern hemlocks, the Canada yew and the yellow and black birch tell of a cool period 10,000 years ago

History of the Area

The hollows and caves of the park complex have long attracted the peoples of Ohio • Evidence of the ancient Adena culture illustrates man first inhabited the recesses more than 7,000 years ago

In the mid 1700's several Indian tribes traveled through or lived here including the Wyandot, Delaware and Shawnee • Their name for the river from which the park gets its name was Hockhocking of "bottle river" • The name comes from the bottle-shaped valley of the Hocking River whose formation is due to its one-time blockage by glacial ice

After the Greenville Treaty of 1795, numerous white settlers moved into the region and Hocking County was organized in 1818 • The area around the parks began to develop in 1835 when a powder mill was built near Rock House and a grist mill was constructed at Cedar Falls

The cave areas were well-known as scenic attractions by 1870 • In 1924, the first land purchase by the state was made to preserve the scenic features • This first parcel of 146 acres included Old Man's Cave • Subsequent purchases built acreage while the areas existed under the Department of Forestry as State Forest Parks • The Department of Natural Resources was created in 1949 and the new Division of Parks assumed control of the Hocking Hills State Park complex, which today includes the six park areas • A dining lodge and cottages were opened in 1972 • These cottages, together with a campground, provide overnight facilities in one of the most beautiful areas of our state