Cedar Falls Side Creek Waterfall, Hocking Hills State Park, Ohio
On a late winter morning I ventured back to the Cedar Falls unit of Hocking Hills State Park in southwest Ohio. There had been a light snowfall during the night--only a couple of inches out in the open--and just a trace on the ground underneath the heavy forest canopy in the park. It was midweek, when the fewest number of visitors would be about, and so it was an ideal time to wander in peace.
Just downstream from Cedar Falls there is a small side creek entering the main stream. Just above the side creek's mouth is this incredible lovely waterfall. Most of the time it is not flowing nearly this broadly. But the hard sandstone that makes up the lip of the waterfall is so nearly level that it does not take much of a rainfall to raise the water level to where it flows over most of the lip, as in this photo.
The mosses on the rocks remain a verdant green throughout the winter, acting as an accent to the deeper greens of the hemlock foliage and the fern fronds. When a light snowfall occurs as well, it shows off the contours of boulders, cliffs, rocks, and ground. An added touch to this scene was to have the morning sun shoot through the trees, seemingly right down the creek toward me.
Photo location: Cedar Falls unit of Hocking Hills State Park, Ohio.
