Cedar Falls

This is Cedar Falls — and despite the name, there's not a cedar in sight. The settlers who named it mistook these towering eastern hemlocks for cedars, and the misnomer stuck for two hundred years. What they got right was the water: this is the biggest waterfall in Hocking Hills by volume, the most muscle of any falls in the park. Queer Creek gathers itself upstream, then throws everything it has over this ledge of Black Hand sandstone into the pool below — a roar after a good rain, a steady rush even in the dry weeks. Get close enough to feel the cool breath coming off it. The Civilian Conservation Corps cut the trails and stone steps that carried you down here back in the nineteen-thirties, and the falls have been pulling people into this gorge ever since. Take your time — this is the big one.