Cuyahoga Valley National Park- Part 2

My brother and I went to Cuyahoga Valley National Park early last week. It´s a national park near Cleveland, Ohio and it´s also not far from Akron, Ohio. It´s nestled in between urban areas and has a unique lay out where trailheads  are located in different towns. I wrote more about the park and our time here when I wrote Part 1. This post has mostly pictures. The pictures are in order in two waves- I have pictures from my Nikon and from my iPhone of the same locations. 

The following are from my Nikon and they´re in order of where we went within the park. The first trail we did was the Brandywine Falls Trail. The trail culminates in getting to view Brandywine Falls. The falls are Ohio´s largest at 85 feet. Not a huge drop but pretty nonetheless :).

I took the first few pictures with a prime lens on my camera. That quickly changed- I wanted to be able to zoom. 

I was on the hunt for red leaves. I found a few...

There was a loud babbling brook

And soon we found ourselves at the top of the falls. You can see people on the main lookout area to view the falls. We´d get there eventually. It was kind of neat at the top. It doesn´t look like much water is at the top and so it doesn´t seem like the falls would look very impressive.

Here we were en route to the look out point; we could see some of the falls but not from the best vantage point.

Almost to the look out spot...

Here are the falls are from top to bottom :). Apparently this area had also had a dry fall. The water was not as robust as in some pictures I´d seen of the falls. Still quite pretty to view :).

The following morning, we went to one area of the park that boasts CVNP best hike according to the Alltrails app. The hike is called Ledges and it was a very pretty hike. The pictures do not do the hike justice (I know that is common in nature!). When I looked back at my pictures, I was like, where the amazing views? It was amazing in person. The rock ledge formations were otherworldly. So cool- but you really need to see it in person. 

At a lookout point...

Back at the parking lot after our hike- This one charter bus was giving me Grand Canyon parking lot vibes- there would just be about thirty buses to be like one of the GC parking lots!

That concludes our hikes in the national park. We were interested in going to one of other place in the park- it also has a waterfall but it was a long and somewhat difficult hike per what we read and we were worried that the waterflow would be very slim or nonexistent so we decided not to do that. We went to a nearby metro park and enjoyed that.

The following pictures are from the metropark:

The Cuyahoga River

We sort of kind of went where we weren´t supposed to... I mean, nothing said to stay out but I guess this was conveying not to enter...

Apparently they are going to get rid of the man made dam in the river.

Here are pictures from my iPhone. I´m going back to the beginning of the trip when we went on the Brandywine Trail to see the falls.

The Brandywine Inn- I had hoped to stay here but it was booked. The inn was located very close to the falls; the trail took us right by the inn.

The top of the falls...

Iphone pictures from  the Ledges Trail that we did the following day

From the overlook area

I think we saw the prettiest leaves on our walk back to the parking lot after finishing the trail

Here are iPhone pictures from the metro park that we went to where we saw the Cuyahoga River.

A few other odds and ends about the trip:

        *We stayed at a LaQuinta in Macedonia,k OH. Ten out of ten recommend if you are not a hotel snob! I get it if you are. I think most middle classers are snobs about something. There are a couple of areas/things where I will spend the money for luxury brands. But hotels? If they are clean, I will stay at a LaQuinta till the cows come home.

Spooky szn in the lobby of the LaQuinta...

        *At the metro park, we saw the only wildlife that was larger than a squirrel. We saw a deer. I thought it was kind of ironic to find wildlife in a metro park but not in the national park. Sadly, we also ran into potheads at the metro park. That kind of tracked, unfortunately. The potheads were the only people we saw (and smelled 😠) at the metro park. In the national park, we encountered lots of friendly people- we asked questions about the trails to a few people and everyone was super friendly.

        *We missed peak leaf colors but probably only by a week or so. We saw many pretty, colorful leaves but they were mostly on the ground. Nonetheless, the trees were pretty and we appreciated colorful leaves on the trees when we saw them.  The weather was near perfect so I am choosing to be grateful for that ¨peak¨ if you will rather than peak leaf color. 

        *My brother is not pictured here as he does not like to have his picture taken. I´m glad he encouraged this trip because I probably would not have seen it without him! Many reviewers of the national park mentioned that this park was good to see if you were in the area but was not one to go out of your way to see. I kind of agree with that and kind of not. I wouldn´t drive ten hours just to see the park but I think it was worth a few hours drive. I do think it would be a great place to add to a trip to Cleveland or Akron if you were there already. Cleveland is pretty large city with pro sports and large city attractions- tacking on a day or two if you´re in the area to see CVNP would be a great thing to do. 

Link up with Joanne for Talking about it Tuesday :).