A 60-foot waterfall, a vintage train, and zero entrance fee: this is Cuyahoga Valley

It’s bigger than you’d expect

Ohio has exactly one national park, and most people who’ve lived in the state their whole lives have never been to it.

Cuyahoga Valley stretches 33,000 acres along the Cuyahoga River between Cleveland and Akron, pulling nearly 2.9 million visitors in 2023 alone.

There’s no entrance fee, no gate, no reservation required to show up.

A 60-foot waterfall, ancient rock formations, a wetland that used to be a junkyard, and a vintage train running through it all.

The closer you look, the stranger and better it gets.

How a valley between two cities became a national park

Congress first protected this land in 1974, when suburban sprawl was creeping toward the river and Congressman John F. Seiberling pushed legislation to stop it.

President Gerald Ford signed the bill on Dec. 27, 1974, creating the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area. It joined Golden Gate and Gateway as one of the first urban-area parks in the National Park System.

Twenty-six years later, on Oct. 11, 2000, the site got redesignated as a full national park, putting it in the same category as Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.

Brandywine Falls drops 60 feet over ancient stone

The falls hit a ledge of sandstone and shale and drop straight down 60 feet, and you watch it from a boardwalk that puts you close enough to feel the air change.

The 1.5-mile Brandywine Gorge Trail loops through the forest and takes you down into the gorge for a view from below, looking up at the full drop.

In the early 1800s, that same rushing water ran sawmills, grist mills, and woolen mills for a small village called Brandywine. The mills are gone.

The water hasn’t slowed.

Walk between 30-foot rock walls on the Ledges Trail

The Ledges Trail runs 2.2 miles through the Virginia Kendall area and takes you between walls of Sharon Conglomerate that formed about 320 million years ago.

In places, the walls rise 30 feet on both sides and the passage narrows to just wide enough to walk through.

Look at the rock face and you’ll see white quartz pebbles pressed into the sandstone, leftovers from ancient stream beds.

The trail ends at the Ledges Overlook, where the forested valley opens up below you in every direction.

A junkyard full of old cars turned into a living wetland

Beaver Marsh sits on 70 acres that were once an auto salvage yard.

In 1984, Sierra Club volunteers worked with the National Park Service to haul out the cars and debris. Then something unexpected happened.

Beavers moved in, built a dam across the old Ohio and Erie Canal, and flooded the land. Seeds that had been dormant in the soil woke up.

The wetland came back on its own.

Today a boardwalk crosses the marsh, beavers still work the water, and the Audubon Society has designated the park an Important Bird Area.

The Towpath Trail follows a 200-year-old canal route

The Ohio and Erie Canal connected Lake Erie in Cleveland to the Ohio River starting in 1827, and mules walked this exact path towing loaded boats through the valley.

That towpath is now a 20-mile trail through the park on flat, crushed limestone, open to hikers, joggers, cyclists, and wheelchairs.

You can spot the old stone locks along the way, remnants of the working canal still standing after nearly two centuries. The surface stays gentle the whole way, so you can cover real distance without much effort.

Ride a vintage train through the park and hike back

The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad runs 51 miles of historic track between Independence and Akron, and it passes right through the park in rail cars that have been running this line for decades.

Very few national parks in the country have a heritage railroad like this one.

The move most visitors make is hiking or biking the Towpath Trail in one direction, then catching the train back to where they started.

The railroad runs themed excursions year-round, including family rides and seasonal events, so the schedule changes depending on when you go.

Blue Hen Falls hides three miles into the forest

Brandywine gets most of the attention, but the park has more waterfalls scattered through its gorges and creek beds.

Blue Hen Falls drops 15 feet into the forest about three miles out-and-back from the Boston Mill Visitor Center, with stairs, bridge crossings, and rolling terrain on the way there.

Bridal Veil Falls, at about 20 feet, takes less work to reach.

All of them run hardest in spring when snowmelt and rain push through the watershed, and that’s when it’s worth going out of your way to find them.

Summit County’s last covered bridge has its own comeback story

Ohio once had more than 2,000 covered bridges, more than any other state. Summit County is down to one.

The Everett Covered Bridge follows the 1869 Smith Truss design, with crisscrossing beams and an open triangle at the center.

A spring storm destroyed the original in 1975, and what stands now is a historically accurate reconstruction that school children, local citizens, private organizations, and government agencies all raised money to rebuild.

The National Park Service completed the work in 1986, and it’s been here ever since.

River otters are back, and so are 250 bird species

White-tailed deer and coyotes move through the woods, mink and muskrats work the creek banks, and American beavers engineer the wetlands.

River otters had disappeared from the valley entirely before Ohio started reintroducing them in 1986, and cleaner water brought them back.

Above the waterline, bald eagles and great blue herons share the sky with dozens of warbler species, and the full bird list runs to about 250 species.

Painted turtles, bullfrogs, garter snakes, and spring peepers fill the wetlands. The variety comes from the mix of forests, fields, river, and marsh packed into one park.

Trails here range from stroller-friendly to genuinely rugged

The park’s 125-plus miles of trails cover every skill level without apology. The Towpath Trail stays flat the whole way and works for wheelchairs and strollers.

The Ledges Trail is rated moderate, with uneven stone steps and rocky footing that will slow you down. In winter, the Virginia Kendall area opens up for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and sledding.

The park runs 365 days a year with no gate hours and no entrance fee, so there’s no wrong time to show up, and no reason to rush.

The CCC built what you’re still walking on today

The Virginia Kendall area carries the name of Hayward Kendall, a Cleveland industrialist who donated the land.

After Kendall died in 1927, the Akron Metropolitan Park District took over. Then the Great Depression hit, and the Civilian Conservation Corps moved in.

The trails, parking areas, shelters, and playfields they built in the 1930s are the same ones you walk through now.

The Ledges Shelter and Octagon Shelter, both CCC construction, still take group reservations. The Virginia Kendall area folded into Cuyahoga Valley National Park after the legislation passed in 1974.

Visit Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio

You can start at the Boston Mill Visitor Center on Riverview Road in Peninsula, which sits about 25 miles south of downtown Cleveland and 20 miles north of downtown Akron.

The park is open every day of the year with free admission. No reservation is needed to enter, and no fee is collected at any entrance.

The nearest airports are Cleveland Hopkins International and Akron-Canton Regional. Hours and railroad schedules vary by season, so check the official website before you go.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• Ohio’s most un-Ohio place has 330-million-year-old caves and it’s all free
• You won’t believe this is Ohio: gorges, waterfalls, and caves one hour from Columbus
• One Ohio village, one famous comic strip, and a waterfall loud enough to stop you mid-sentence