Yellowstone National Park just released its visitor count for July 2021, and had over 1 million visitors for the first time ever, and despite the remote location is often ranked as the second most visited park. Cuyahoga Valley National Park is between two major metropolitan area of Cleveland and Akron, and is the seventh most visited park. Most of the places we visited mid-week in August had manageable crowds, and slightly busy on the towpath. On Saturday morning, we stopped at one of the most popular spots—the Ledges.
Portal, Cuyahoga Valley National Park
You drive into a large grassy plateau with parking areas, shelters and visitor center, and wooded, sandstone ledges surround the area. To get to the 2 mile trail below the ledges, you need to go through one of the many portals cut into the forest.
Before going down to the trail below the ledges, an area called the Overlook awaits.
The overlook
It seemed the sandstone was taking some inspiration from the beech trees and carving look-alike branches.
The trail below reminded me a lot of the Giant City trail in Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois. Some large tree grew out of the sandstone.
And ferns were spot-lighted on the forest floor.
You might encounter a monster or two on the ledges.
With an early start, there weren’t too many hikers, but by the time we finished the trail and looped another trail, the trail was getting more crowded and the parking lot was filling up.
