The only way to describe Hocking Hills and Old Man’s Cave is massive and ancient.  It puts one into one’s place and everything into proper perspective.

A silent ethereal forest of towering hemlocks, hundreds of years old, old stone and soaring metal footbridges, waterfalls and pools, makes you think you’re in the Hobbit Shire.  Climbing and tunneling through ancient caves and sandstone rock formations, you really feel how tiny you are in the bigger picture.  Centuries of rushing water have carved out what look like naturally flushing toilet bowls in the solid rock.  There are many fascinating species of ferns, lichens, fungi, and sphagnum mosses covering everything, and tenacious tangles of tree roots clinging to huge boulders above the forest floor.

There’s no way to capture the uniqueness of this place in amateur photography, but I’ve tried.  You can gauge the massive scale of everything by the tiny people.  We hiked all day, almost 10 miles, or so it felt.  It was an exhausting but purifying kind of journey.

This will be in three parts.  That’s after I eliminated many shots!  It took me three days just to process!  There is nowhere in this park that isn’t incredibly gorgeous.  I can’t do it justice.