This Jefferson County canyon in Indiana has fossils that predate dinosaurs by 200 million years

It’s southern Indiana’s wildest surprise

Clifty Falls State Park sits just west of Madison in Jefferson County, right where the land drops toward the Ohio River. The park covers about 1,500 acres, and most of it is canyon.

Clifty Creek carved a gorge that runs the full length of the park, falling from 800 feet at the rim to 500 feet at the valley floor.

Four named waterfalls, nearly 15 miles of trails, and rocks that predate every dinosaur by 200 million years fill the space between. The best parts take some effort to reach.

Local citizens paid to make this park happen

Back in 1920, a group of Jefferson County residents pooled their money and raised half the purchase price for the original parkland. The State of Indiana matched the rest.

The whole effort rode on Richard Lieber’s push to grow the state park system while it was still young. Today, hundreds of thousands of people come through every year.

A lot of what you walk on and past, the stone walls, the shelters, the stairways, goes back to Civilian Conservation Corps crews who built them by hand in the 1930s.

Tunnel Falls drops 83 feet beside an abandoned rail line

Tunnel Falls is the tallest waterfall in the park at 83 feet. It sits on Dean’s Branch, a creek that flows down into Clifty Creek farther below.

You get the best look from an observation deck along Trail 5, where the full drop opens up right in front of you. The name comes from a railroad tunnel just nearby, one that never actually carried a train.

That story is worth knowing, and you’ll find out why a few trails later.

Hoffman Falls carved its own limestone bowl

At 78 feet, Hoffman Falls is the second tallest drop in the park. It runs along Hoffman Branch before feeding into Clifty Creek Canyon.

Trail 4 brings you to a viewing platform above the falls, so you look straight down the rock face to the pool below. Fair warning: the trail to get there runs about three-quarters of a mile and earns its “rugged” rating.

The footing is uneven and the grade is steep, so wear shoes you trust.

Walk across one waterfall and look down at another

Big Clifty Falls and Little Clifty Falls both stand 60 feet tall, and Trail 7 connects them. The upper overlook at Big Clifty Falls is ADA accessible, so every visitor can take in the view.

A short walk farther, Trail 7 crosses directly over Little Clifty Falls on a wooden bridge. You look straight down through the mist to the creek below.

These falls run strongest from December through June, fed by rain and snowmelt. By late summer, they can slow to a trickle or dry up completely.

A $300,000 railroad tunnel that never carried a single train

In 1852, John Brough bought the local railroad and set out to push a new route through Clifty Canyon. More than 700 workers started carving through shale and limestone, digging a 600-foot tunnel into the rock.

By 1854, the project had burned through roughly $300,000 and not one rail had touched the ground. People started calling it Brough’s Folly.

The tunnel is closed now due to a rockslide, but you can still hike Trail 5 around both entrances and spot old stone abutments and bridge supports along Trails 1, 3, 4 and 5.

The creek bed holds 425-million-year-old sea creatures

The shale and limestone in this canyon rank among the oldest exposed bedrock in all of Indiana, about 425 million years old.

Shallow seas once covered this ground, and when the water pulled back, it left marine animals buried in mud that hardened into rock.

Walk the creek bed and you’ll find fossil remnants of ancient corals, ancestral squids, brachiopods and crinoids pressed into the stone.

You can look and photograph all you want, but collecting is off limits inside the park.

Trail 2 puts you right in the creek bed

Ten marked trails wind through the park, numbered 1 through 10, and they range from easy strolls to hands-on-rock scrambles. Trail 2 is the wildest.

It follows the stone creek bed of Clifty Creek itself for three miles and earns its “very rugged” tag. High water can shut it down, so the easiest time to hike it is July through November.

If you want something gentler, Trail 10 is a three-quarter-mile loop through old field ecology that works well for families and anyone looking for flat ground.

Bag all four waterfalls in one 4-mile loop

The Four Falls Challenge is a 4-mile rugged route that takes you past every named waterfall in the park. Grab a map at the nature center or the Clifty Inn front desk before you start.

Along the way, you photograph seven specific waypoints to prove you hit them all. The whole thing takes about two to three hours, and you pass CCC stonework along Trails 6 and 7 between falls.

When you finish, show your photos to the nature center staff and walk out with a Four Falls Challenge sticker.

The nature center started life as a 1930s saddle barn

CCC crews built the original structure as a saddle barn in the 1930s.

A tornado tore into it in 1974, and the park later remodeled the building into the nature center you see today.

Inside, you’ll find live animal exhibits, fossil displays, a bird-watching room, interactive stations for kids and a relief map that lays out the entire park.

Trail 1 starts right from the parking lot here and leads to an observation tower where you can see the Ohio River and downtown Madison spread out below.

Swim, bird-watch and read stories on the trail

An Olympic-size pool with water slides and a wading area opens during summer, and the park spreads picnic areas, shelters, tennis courts, playgrounds and big grassy fields across the grounds.

The 178-acre Clifty Canyon Nature Preserve sits inside the park and draws birders looking for Scarlet Tanagers, Summer Tanagers, Louisiana Waterthrush and the occasional Bald Eagle.

Near Trail 7, the Friends of Clifty Falls and the Jefferson County Library set up a StoryWalk on a paved, wheelchair-accessible loop where kids read a picture book one page at a time as they walk.

Clifty Inn has watched the Ohio River since 1922

Richard Lieber converted an old stone farmhouse on the bluff into a small hotel back in 1922, and the inn has grown from there. Several expansions and renovations followed over the decades, the most recent in 2006.

Rooms face the Ohio River, and the restaurant serves home-style meals. Guests get access to a private indoor pool and hot tub.

The Indiana Department of Natural Resources runs the inn as part of the state park system, so you book through them.

Visit Clifty Falls State Park in Indiana

You can reach Clifty Falls State Park from entrances off State Roads 56 and 62, just west of Madison, Indiana. The park stays open year-round, though the waterfalls run best from December through June.

Indiana charges a gate fee of $7 per in-state vehicle and $9 per out-of-state vehicle.

The nature center, trails and Clifty Inn all operate on seasonal schedules, so check the Indiana DNR site before you go for current hours and rates.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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