This year I am spending the fall color chase going south – hitting the southern end of Ohio and then into the Great Smoky Mountains. I have always wanted to visit some of the waterfalls and canyons of Hocking Hills, Ohio – to break the perception that it is just flat farmland. So this year it is on the itinerary, which is where I am right now. From here it will be down to the Smoky Mountains. I will probably be a little early still for peak color, but I am hoping to find some good pockets here and there. I don’t know if I will be able to post updates from this trip that often, but since my first night is in a comfortable motel with internet access, I thought I would make the best of it.

Fall colors in general are pretty late this year. Michigan’s Upper Penninsula typically peaks the first week in October from year to year. However, 2005 fall colors seem to be 2 weeks late just about everywhere. One of the nicer sites for tracking fall color progress is the Fall Foilage Network. This report shows most of Ohio as “moderate color.” Being down here however, I think it shows a bit more progression than the maps say. Especially in the Hocking Hills area, probably due to some of the higher elevations, there is some major color in the hillsides. Arriving in this area was a nice breath of fresh air from the typical stereotype of Ohio portrayed by Michiganders. In fact, the main road running through Hocking Hills can more accurately described as a rollercoaster track. I think I know where Cedar Point gets some of their ideas from now.

Today was spent mostly scouting and getting familiar with the area. The rain and drizzle encouraged it. However, I did visit one falls, Cedar Falls, in the rain. Being late afternoon, I tried to pick one with a short walk to make the most of the remaining light, what little there was due to the rain. One concern about this area was that the falls are flowing the best in the spring, and nearly dry up by the time summer comes around. Cedar Falls certainly wasn’t as majestic as some of the images I have seen from the spring time, but it was a beautiful cove nonetheless, with some splashes of fall color here and there. Tomorrow holds perhaps a bit more rain, but the wetness and overcast skies certainly bring out the saturation of the colors.

~m