Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio - August 12th to 15th, 2021

Cuyahoga Valley National Park does not have the stunning natural beauty that some of its more popular sister parks have, like the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, or Grand Teton. However, it is still beautiful and worth a visit. Cuyahoga Valley is situated between the cities of Cleveland and Akron along the Cuyahoga River in Ohio. It’s natural beauty and history are easily accessible by car, rail, bike, or kayak.

Thursday was a drive day. We moved from Hocking Hills State Park to West Branch State Park. Zanesville was our major stop along the way to resupply for groceries and gas. There was a farmer’s stand just a couple of blocks from the grocery store where Right Buddy (RB) stocked up on fresh veggies and a melon. For lunch, we headed up to Putnam Hill Park for a picnic. There is a nice overlook in the park which looks out over the town and where the Licking River flows into the Muskingum River. At the confluence is the Y Bridge, connecting Linden Avenue with Main Street on the bridge. Google Maps kept trying to route us onto the bridge to get to or from Linden Avenue, but luckily Left Buddy (LB) was alert. The underpass on Linden Avenue, just before the bridge, is too low for our high roof van.

After lunch we went to Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl. It was a cute place with indoor seating, serving ice cream, sandwiches, chocolate, and freshly roasted nuts. It was a hot day, so we appreciated the cool air conditioning inside. The staff behind the counters wore bow ties. The place was packed, but we were able to get a seat right away. The two waitresses were busy keeping up with the stream of customers. LB got his usual vanilla shake. RB got a dip of mint chocolate chip and a dip of chocolate peanut butter cup in a dish. Well, she thought she ordered two dips, but what came was more like four dips from anywhere else. RB struggled to finish it all. LB kept saying that she didn’t have to finish it all. Silly LB! 

Even though we were camping in West Branch State Park, our goal was to spend time in Cuyahoga Valley National Park during the day. Cuyahoga Valley National Park is located along the Cuyahoga River between Cleveland and Akron, Ohio. The area was part of the Ohio & Erie Canal and a railroad that ran the same route. The weather forecast for Friday called for rain all day. A perfect day for taking a train ride through the park. We bought our tickets online for the National Park Scenic excursion, the round trip coach seats. The price is supposed to be $15 per person and we selected the $2 senior discount, but the final bill came to $16 per person. Perhaps there is a charge for ordering online, but the bill did not itemize the charges. Oh well. 

There is only a single track through the park, so the same train makes multiple trips a day. In the summer during the week, it only makes two complete round trips. On Saturdays, it adds a third trip. The train starts in the north end of the park, at Rockside Station, and starts its trip back north from the Akron Northside Station, which is actually outside the park. You have to pick one of three locations to start your round trip from: Rockside (at the north end of the park), Akron Northside (south of the park), or Peninsula, which is about half way through the park. We chose to start at the Peninsula Station at 11:45 am. The full round trip takes about three and a half hours to complete. 

We woke up at 7 am when the electricity, and our air conditioner, turned off. Our inverter/charger issues were definitely not over. For some reason, the inverter/charger had drained our batteries again. This time the inverter/charger reported an OLP error (Over Load Protection). The only things that should have been on were the fridge and the air conditioner. There should have been plenty of power coming from shore power. After unplugging and allowing the inverter/charger to reset, we left the air conditioner off, plugged back in, and let the batteries charge the rest of the morning.  

It was raining when we first arrived at the Peninsula Station in the morning. However, it didn’t rain the whole time we were on the train. Right after we finished our dinner back at the campground, it poured rain the rest of the evening. Even though it didn’t rain while we were on the train as planned, that meant we had better views from the train.

Peninsula Station is the only train depot on the route that is historic from the 1800’s. It is painted red. The other train depots are built in the same style, but are painted yellow to indicate they are not originals. We arrived a little early for our train ride, so we had some time to walk around a little in the rain. Peninsula Station is in the little historic village of Peninsula with shops and restaurants. Nearby are the remnants of Lock 29 of the canal. The lock originally had an aqueduct that carried the canal over the Cuyahoga River. 

The train ride was not that exciting, but it is a nice ride. The route is mainly through the woods. There are glimpses of the Cuyahoga River every now and then along with a couple of farms. Indigo Lake, Beaver Marsh, and Boston Mills Ski Resort are other noticeable features along the route. The train also passes under I-80 and I-270 since the two interstate highways both bisect the park. 

No food or drink is allowed to be brought on board, but there is a cafe car. Since we were on the train at lunch time, we had hot dogs, chips, pretzels and hummus, along with splitting a bag of popcorn. We indulged and drank two bottles of Coke each. We consumed our nutritious lunch at a table in the cafe car. Masks were required to be worn while on the train, except when eating or drinking. We probably ate too much junk food just to delay putting our masks back on. 

After our train ride, we drove to Country Maid Ice Cream which was not very far away. RB had chocolate peanut butter and mint chocolate chip. LB had, you guessed it, a vanilla shake. The ice cream was pretty tasty. In addition to making ice cream, Country Maid is also an apple and peach orchard. RB decided to pick up some Paula Red apples. It was not an apple variety she was familiar with, so she thought we’d give it a try. 

When we got back to our campsite, we thought we’d run the air conditioner to cool the van down, then leave it off during the night. We didn’t make it that far. It wasn’t long before the inverter/charger reported another error. So we gave up on running the air conditioner and just let the batteries fully charge over night. Luckily the rain had cooled the temperature down so we were comfortable sleeping just using the fans.

The rain was over by Saturday morning, so we went for a bike ride. The Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail runs 87 miles from Canal Basin Park in Cleveland past Canal Lands Park in Dover, Ohio. About 20 miles of the trail is inside Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Twenty miles sounded like more our style.

For $5, the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad will take your bike or kayak along with you one way to a depot of your choice. Then you can bike the towpath trail or kayak the Cuyahoga River to get back. They call this the Explorer. There are eight train stops along the route where you can get on or off. If you want to catch the train at one of the stations, just flag it down. We chose to get on the train with our bikes at the Rockside Road station in the north end, ride the train with our bikes all the way to the Akron Northside station past the southern boundary of the park and ride our bikes back. We woke up early to catch the 9 am train. That would allow us all day to leisurely ride back.

The box cars that haul the bikes and kayaks are at the north end of the train. There is a special Explorer coach car next to the box cars that the people ride in. They are not allowed to explore the rest of the train cars, so the cafe car is not accessible. However, there is a smaller selection of snacks, drinks, and souvenirs in the Explorer car. We bought a couple bottles of Coke and settled into our seats for the hour and a half train ride.

Not long after the train pulled out of the station, they announced that the train would not be able to go all the way to the Akron Northside station. There was a power line down across the tracks and they didn’t know how long it would take to be cleared. They said that they could drop people off at Big Bend, not an official stop. Then a few minutes later they announced that there was a tree down across the tracks between the Indigo Lake station and the Botzam station. When they reach the tree, a couple of men will jump off the train with chain saws and clear it. That could take anywhere from five minutes to an hour to clear. Oh, and the train will not go past the Botzam station to get back on schedule.

We debated about waiting it out and getting off at Botzam, but it was only three miles between Indigo Lake and Botzam. We got off at Indigo Lake and rode the tow path to Botzam and back. By the time we reached Botzam on our bikes, the train was sitting in the station. We didn’t mind. The bike ride between Indigo Lake and Botzam was lovely. Much nicer than sitting on a train.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park is not unspoiled wilderness, never touched by humans. The park is allowing nature to reclaim the land. The Cuyahoga River was once so polluted, it caught fire at least 13 times, with the most famous fire on June 22, 1969. At one time, sections of the river were devoid of fish. There are now 44 species of fish living in those areas. What was once a sand and gravel pit called Gray’s Quarry, is now Indigo Lake. What was once a place to dump old cars and parts is now Beaver Marsh, a thriving wetland. It is refreshing to see land returned to wilderness and support a variety of wildlife. There is still work for the National Park Service to do to keep the wilderness and improve the ecosystem, but people are enjoying it now.

Beaver Marsh is between Indigo Lake and Botzam Station, so we rode through it twice. The Towpath Trail is a wooden boardwalk through the marsh. A couple of park rangers were pointing out all the wildlife to those who stopped by. You needed to stop and look closely to see all the variety of birds that seemed to blend into the lily pads. Along the canal close to the marsh, turtles, with their shells covered in green algae, lined up on logs, soaking in the warmth of the sun.

When we returned to Indigo Lake, we sat in the shade on the benches in the covered train depot to eat our snacks that we had brought with us. The train came through while we sat there. A few minutes later, a group of three came over to the depot, asking us if we were waiting for the 11:45 am train. A short conversation helped them realize they were at the wrong station. They needed to be at the Peninsula Station. They hustled back to their car. We’re not sure if they made it in time, but we hope they had a good day whether or not they caught their train.

Our next stop along the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail was Peninsula. It was time for ice cream. When we were shopping for park souvenirs the day before in Trail Mix Peninsula, we remembered that they sold Mitchell’s Homemade Ice Cream in prepared containers. Mitchell’s is based in Cleveland with stores throughout the metropolitan area. We had never tried it before. RB had the mint chocolate chunk and LB had vanilla. It tasted pretty good! Of course, our opinions of the ice cream may have been influenced by riding quite a few miles to get there. 

Most of the Towpath Trail is shaded, in the woods. Every now and then, we would pass by the remains of an old canal lock. There is a restored lock at the Canal Exploration Center. In non-COVID years, the park service conducts lock demonstrations. However, the Canal Exploration Center has wonderful interpretative displays inside about life on the canal. 

The restored lock looked very familiar to us. We have visited a similar lock, Lock #44, several times on the Miami and Erie Canal in Providence Park near Toledo, Ohio. On one occasion we took a short boat ride through the lock on a canal boat replica pulled by mules on the towpath. We’re not sure if they run those boat rides any more. Further down the Ohio & Erie Canal, in Canal Fulton, there are one hour canal boat rides pulled by two draft horses. We have never been there, but, if it is anything like what we did in Providence Park, it is well worth your time.

We made it back to Rockside Station, where we parked our van before boarding the train, at about 3 pm. Our total bike ride was 24.5 miles with an elevation gain of only 351 feet, in about five hours, including stops. According to our AllTrails app, we were only actually moving a little under three and a half hours. An added bonus of biking from south to north along the towpath was that it was downhill most of the time. However, the trail is pretty flat, so riding south would not be a big difference.

We made it back to West Branch State Park in time to make dinner. The high temperature for the day was in the low 70’s and the humidity had dropped. To avoid any more inverter/charger issues, we did not turn on the air conditioner. It was not needed anyway as the temperatures dropped down into the fifties overnight.

Sunday was a hiking day. Another day of pleasant temperatures in the 70’s with no rain. However, like always, the day didn’t go perfectly.

While we were eating our breakfast at our campsite, a muskrat swam along in the little water inlet below our campsite. He was eating his breakfast as well, munching on the vegetation growing in the water. The squirrels were a little noisy, chasing each other around the tree tops above us. 

On the drive over to Cuyahoga Valley National Park, our van posted a “Tire Pressure Sensor Fault”. This was from the Ford built-in sensors. We had not re-installed our TPMS (paid link) sensors since we had the van maintenance done a couple of weeks ago while we were visiting our relatives. So we pulled over to check out what might be wrong. After manually checking the tire pressure in all of the tires, we reset the code. We have the BlueDriver (paid link) installed so LB can read and control the Ford’s error codes from an app on his phone. The BlueDriver includes a little Bluetooth device that plugs into the diagnostic port on the van. Googling the error code indicated that the fault could be caused by several things. First, the sensors had troubling communicating with each other. Second, the sensor has gone bad and needs replacing. And third, the tires are outside the normal pressure range. Since we ruled out the third one, we’ll just wait to see if the error code comes back. If not, it was probably just a communication blip. If it does come back, we’ll take it in to get the sensor replaced. In the meantime, we need to stop being lazy and re-install our TPMS sensors.

Our first hike of the day was Brandywine Falls. These are the falls that are pictured on many of the park’s souvenirs. The falls are just a short walk from the parking lot. That seemed a little like cheating to us, so we took the Brandywine Gorge Trail to reach the falls. It is a 1.7 mile loop trail with a 187 foot elevation gain. It took us a little under an hour to complete. About the only significant point of interest along the trail, besides the falls, is a large oak tree. You have to pay attention that you don’t miss it, RB almost did. Thanks LB for noticing it. The falls are impressive. However, it would be a little nicer if you couldn’t hear the semi’s using their air brakes on the interstate in the background.

The other hike of the day was the Ledges Trail. The parking lot is on a small plateau with a short sandstone cliff in a circle around it. The trail is a loop that follows the base of the cliff. The Ice Box Cave is in the cliff along the trail, but it is closed off to people to protect the bats. The path we followed was three miles long with an elevation gain of 282 feet. We completed it in an hour and a half. 

We counted the two hikes combined as our hike #34 of our 52 Hike Challenge and hike #20  of the National Park Series. The combined totals were 4.7 miles with a 449 foot elevation gain in two hours and 40 minutes.

For our last stop in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, we drove over to the Everett Covered Bridge. It was not very impressive. It is not the original bridge, but a reconstruction done in the 1970’s. It does show what it was like, which is part of the mission of the park. 

Now it was time for ice cream. A Google search brought up Hershey’s of Hudson. We have been driving through the town of Hudson every day as we go back and forth between West Branch State Park and Cuyahoga Valley. RB thought the downtown shopping district on Main Street looked cute every time we drove by. Hershey’s Ice Cream is also a draw because we used to eat it all the time when we lived in upstate New York. Even though Hershey’s chocolate is available around the world, Hershey’s Ice Cream is only sold in Pennsylvania, New York, and parts of Ohio. It had been a long time since we’ve eaten Hershey’s Ice Cream, so Hershey’s of Hudson was the winner. RB had a cone with chocolate peanut butter cup and mint chip. Chocolate peanut butter cup was her favorite from when we lived in New York. It is chocolate ice cream with sheets of peanut butter woven through it. It is not dark chocolate, but it brought back memories of an earlier time. Surprisingly, LB had a chocolate shake instead of his usual vanilla shake. He said that it felt wrong to have vanilla from a company known for their chocolate.

A stroll up and down a few blocks of N Main Street allowed us to check out the cute little shops and historic buildings. Even though we don’t like to shop, there is just something appealing to us about the atmosphere of small shops and old architecture. It looked like they were setting up for a concert at the gazebo on the Hudson Green, but we didn’t hang around to find out. 

After dinner, RB was still hungry. We had lots of apples, so RB baked apple brownies in our new Omnia Oven. (paid link) They really hit the spot. The Omnia Oven sits on top of the butane stove. RB had tested it out with a few recipes at home before we left. This was the first time she has used it on the road. Apple brownies is a recipe that RB has used for years in a regular oven. It seemed to do well in the Omnia Oven. She received the recipe from a friend decades ago. We’re not sure why it’s called apple brownies, because there is no chocolate in it. There’s flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, butter, eggs, cinnamon, and vanilla along with a lot of chopped apples. It’s one of our family’s favorite desserts.

While RB was baking, LB caught up on some maintenance items on the van. Yes, he re-installed the TPMS sensors on the tires. It is a little bit of a pain because the wheel covers have to be popped off to put the sensors on. His hands were pretty black by the time he was done. The other item was to put a strip of Gaffers tape along the front of the bottom shelf of the fridge. Items on the bottom shelf have a tendency to slide out when we open the door, especially if the van is not completely level. We tried laying down a piece of non-slip gripper pad, but it just kept bunching up and shifting around. The Gaffers tape should stay in place and hopefully provide enough friction to keep things from sliding out.

Even though Cuyahoga Valley National Park does not have stunning vistas, we’re glad we spent three days there. It allowed us to explore all the different aspects of the park, like the train, the bike path, the locks, the historic buildings and villages, the river, the waterfall, lakes, the rocky cliffs, and the marsh. Much of its beauty is on a smaller scale than most national parks, but that helped us notice all the birds, flowers, and turtles along the way. Being so close to a couple of metropolitan areas means it is more accessible to more people who might never make a trip to some of the other national parks in the country.

Check out our related video: Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio

(RB)