The forest along this stretch of the byway is a century-old repair job. After timber companies stripped these hills nearly bare and the farms that followed failed, Depression-era crews planted three hundred thousand trees here by hand — pine, hemlock, tulip poplar, and black walnut — and the planted forest grew up to become the green walls visitors drive through today. This segment tells that recovery story from the road and handles the practical handoff at the leg's end: parking cues for the Rock House entrance for southbound drivers, and for Cantwell Cliffs — the park's quiet northern finale — for drivers running the tour in reverse.
Here's a secret hiding in plain sight: most of this forest is younger than your grandparents — and it was planted, a staggering share of it, by hand. A hundred years ago these hills were nearly naked. The big timber outfits had cut them to stubble, the hill farms that came after gave up on the thin soil, and the land sat scarred and washing away with every rain. The rescue came during the Depression, when crews of young men — paid next to nothing, most of even that mailed straight home — fanned out across these slopes and put three hundred thousand trees in the ground: hemlock and pine, black walnut and tulip poplar, set into the dirt one at a time. You've spent the whole day walking under the result. The deep shade at the falls, the green walls over every trail — a lot of that is their work, grown up tall. I'll leave the rest of those young men's story where it belongs — you've already climbed their stone steps today — but carry this much with you: the forest out your window is a repair job that took, maybe the best one in Ohio. And now for your reward, because you've saved the right one for last. The Cantwell Cliffs entrance is coming up ahead on your right — watch for the sign and park up when you reach it. This is the park's far northern corner, the area most visitors never get to, and after a full day you've earned what it offers: a great horseshoe of cliffs, deep quiet, and a way down into the gorge so narrow and strange you'll be telling people about it at dinner. It's the last area of your day, so the clock is off you now. Walk it slow. Let the day's miles settle while you're down in that cool rock. The quietest corner of the Hocking Hills is a fine room to finish in — and when you climb back out to your car, you'll have done the whole glorious thing, end to end. The hills will be impressed. So am I.