There’s a particular kind of quiet you notice almost immediately when you step off the pavement and into Hocking Hills. It is the hush of deeply carved gorges, the steady drip of water from a mossy lip of sandstone, and the soft rhythm of leaves making their slow, seasonal confetti. For decades Hocking Hills State Park has been one of Ohio’s best-known natural treasures, drawing visitors who come to stand under Cedar Falls, to walk the narrow chutes near Old Man’s Cave, and to feel a sense of being small inside a landscape that is both ancient and intimate. But Hocking Hills is more than a regional showpiece. It is emblematic of what has become a larger success story: Ohio’s state parks are managed, invested in, and promoted in ways that have lifted the entire system to national recognition.
Hocking Hills’ story begins in stone. The park sits on Blackhand sandstone, a tough, coarse-grained rock that resists the steady work of flowing water in just the right way: rather than simply eroding flat expanses, the water found joints and weaknesses and sculpted dramatic vertical gorges, shelter caves, and recessed waterfalls over millennia. In places where joints split and blocks loosened, small cliffs and overhangs formed. In others, relentless seepage carved deep notches that became the narrow chasms hikers travel through today. The geology is the stage on which the human history of the place has played out: Indigenous inhabitants, early settlers, nineteenth-century hermits told about in local lore, and the modern conservationists and park managers who decided the land should be preserved for public enjoyment. Old Man’s Cave, perhaps the most famous site in the park, is at once a geological classroom and a cultural touchstone; its meandering ravine tells a story that is at once slow and dramatic, written in layers of stone and the slow patience of water.
But the park is not a museum specimen. Hocking Hills is lively. Visitors come to climb and to photograph, but they also come for quieter reasons: to sit on a bench at the rim and watch fog rise out of the gorge at dawn, to bring children to touch slippery rock and learn the vocabulary of nature, to take photos that will become keepsakes because the light at certain times of day is impossibly specific, filtering through hemlock and oak. The park’s physical assets—its trails, interpretive centers, and stewardship of key sites—are paired with a thoughtful approach to access. Hocking Hills has long balanced increased visitation with infrastructure improvements, such as clearly marked trails, visitor centers that provide orientation and education, and maintenance schedules that keep fragile areas from being overrun. This hands-on stewardship is one reason Hocking Hills continues to be a model for both preserving delicate ecosystems and welcoming large numbers of visitors.
The rise of Hocking Hills into the national consciousness parallels a wider evolution in the Ohio state park system. Where once parks might have been little more than open spaces with picnic tables, the state has systematically developed a multi-faceted park network that weaves recreation, conservation, cultural interpretation, and community engagement into a cohesive program. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) manages 76 state parks that together provide an enormous variety of experiences: quiet, wooded lakes and high-energy water parks; West-to-East differences in geology that produce unique hiking landscapes; and a plurality of programs aimed at school groups, tourists, and local residents.
What sets Ohio apart is the intention behind the investment. The state has made a point to fund sustainability efforts, interpretive programming, and accessibility upgrades in a way many other systems have not. ODNR’s sustainability performance reporting documents a multi-year commitment to reducing energy use, improving conservation practices, and achieving certifications across parks. ConServe Ohio certification and similar initiatives have translated into tangible changes on the ground: better waste management systems, energy-efficient building retrofits at park lodges and visitor centers, native-plant restoration projects, and practices that shore up fragile habitats. The state’s recent public documents show a concerted plan to benchmark progress and make sustainability a measurable part of park operations, not merely a slogan.
The commitment to culture and history is another facet of Ohio’s park strategy. Great Council State Park, Ohio’s newest state park, is itself a case study in intentional, inclusive interpretation. Developed in partnership with the Shawnee tribes, the park does not simply preserve land; it preserves stories. Its interpretive center, designed to honor Shawnee architecture and cultural practices, creates a space that both educates visitors and recognizes Indigenous stewardship of the land across centuries. This kind of partnership signals that Ohio’s parks are thinking beyond trails and campsites; they are thinking about narrative and the role parks play in teaching regional history.
Accessibility is a thread running through ODNR’s modern approach. Making parks welcoming to families, visitors with disabilities, and older adults is both ethical and strategic: the more people who can use and love these places, the broader the public support for park funding and conservation. Ohio’s parks have installed adaptive kayak launches, accessible boardwalks, and playgrounds designed for children of varying abilities, and they’ve expanded programs to include sensory-friendly events and accessible interpretive programming. Accessibility in this sense is not a one-time retrofit; it is a cultural commitment that shapes which projects get prioritized and how budgets are allocated.
There is an economic logic to this inclusive stewardship. Parks are engines of local tourism. Towns near major parks have built micro-economies around the seasons—outfitters that rent canoes and kayaks, bed-and-breakfasts that cater to hikers, coffee shops that stay open late for weekend crowds. Hocking Hills’ impact on its surrounding communities is obvious: businesses oriented around outdoor recreation flourish during peak months, and even during slower seasons the park remains a steady draw for people seeking quiet or solitude. State marketing efforts amplify this effect by promoting parks as part of Ohio’s broader travel narrative, encouraging longer stays and more diversified itineraries that move visitors beyond the traditional weekend trip.
But success brings challenges. As visitation climbs, parks must balance public access against resource protection. Trails erode; parking lots fill; popular overlooks become crowded. The way Ohio has tried to respond is representative of a pragmatic approach: invest in durable infrastructure, expand visitor education, and use data. Visitor counters, trail condition surveys, and park-level sustainability audits inform where money and staff time go next. In some high-pressure areas, management has adopted user-capacity strategies: timed-entry systems for the busiest days, volunteer trail crews that help with maintenance, and targeted restoration projects that aim to repair undercut trails or restore sensitive riparian zones.
Staff and volunteers are the beating heart of this system. Park rangers, naturalists, maintenance crews, and an army of volunteers keep campgrounds clean, teach programs about local ecosystems, and respond to seasonal hazards. When a state wins national recognition, the accolade acknowledges these people as much as it does the land. It recognizes that every interpretive program, every replaced trail sign, and every weekend of volunteer trail work contributes to a public experience that visitors remember and recommend.
If Hocking Hills is a poster child for dramatic scenery and smart visitor amenities, other parks in Ohio reflect different strengths—diversity of experience being one of the system’s greatest assets. Mohican State Park, with its flowing Clear Fork River and abundant paddling options, offers a different kind of intimacy with nature, one defined by water and meandering riverbanks. Mohican’s river trips, local outfitter partnerships, and family-friendly camping facilities show how parks can leverage a natural asset into a cluster of experiences: tubing and canoeing in summer, leaf-peeping in fall, and quiet winter walks in the off-season.
Lake-based parks, such as Perry and Buckeye Lake, show how Ohio has preserved swimmer and angler culture, while allowing for modern improvements to infrastructure and accessibility. Islands and lakefront parks along Lake Erie, including Kelleys Island, add geological and birding attractions that national birders and geology buffs appreciate. State parks in the Appalachian foothills and in the glaciated north demonstrate an impressive range of habitats, which allows ODNR to design targeted conservation programs that protect species and ecosystems unique to each region.
A noteworthy development within Ohio’s recent park narrative is the opening of Great Council State Park. This park was deliberately conceived as more than open land: it was born out of a dialogue with Indigenous communities and the intent to create an interpretive lens on the Shawnee presence in the region. The project shows how modern parks can be built with justice and partnership at their core, offering educational programming and interpretive exhibits that invite visitors to understand the layered histories of these landscapes. It is a model other states might replicate: consultation from the earliest planning stages, interpretive content that is co-directed by living communities, and design that honors cultural forms.
All of this hard work, careful planning, and intentional inclusivity did not go unnoticed in national circles. In 2025, Ohio’s state parks were recognized with one of the most prestigious awards in park and recreation management, an award that evaluates long-term planning, innovation, environmental stewardship, and community engagement. While awards are not the reason stewards do this work, they do serve as an external validation of sustained investment. For Ohio, the honor is a signal that conservation and recreation can be aligned through planning, partnership, and a focus on equitable access.
That recognition also brings responsibility. Successful parks attract more people, and with rising visitation comes the need for sustained funding, vigilant conservation practices, and thoughtful programming that spreads demand across time and space. If a popular destination becomes overcrowded during peak weekends, managers must choose between expanding infrastructure—which can be costly and potentially damaging—or managing visitation through scheduling, outreach, and encouraging alternative destinations. Ohio’s approach has included a mix of both: strategic investment in durable improvements, combined with communications campaigns that encourage off-peak travel and promote lesser-known parks to spread visitation.
From a visitor’s perspective, planning is worth the effort. A little preparation keeps expectations realistic and supports resource protection. Pack the right footwear for slick sandstone trails; bring layers for sudden changes in gorge microclimates; educate children about staying on trails and being respectful of wildlife. For those who want fewer crowds, weekdays or shoulder seasons provide a quieter experience; for photographers seeking dramatic low-light scenes, sunrise and the heavy mists of autumn mornings are unparalleled. Local outfitters and visitor centers offer guided trips and equipment rentals, and they also provide another economic thread that helps local communities benefit from the presence of state parks.
Finally, the story of Hocking Hills and Ohio’s broader park system is a reminder that public lands are both fragile and resilient. They demand stewardship and funding, but they also yield intangible returns: a field trip where a child first names a bird, a couple who reconnects on a trail, an older adult who rediscovers the ability to hike with a new accessibility device. These returns compound over time. When a state invests in both the land and the people who care for it, the parks flourish in ways that ripple across generations.
Ohio’s recent national recognition is not merely a joyful headline; it is a call to continue doing what works—investing in conservation, expanding access, honoring cultural histories, and listening to the needs of communities both nearby and far away. Hocking Hills exemplifies those values: a place where rock and water and human curiosity come together, where the park is both a teacher and a refuge, and where careful management ensures that future visitors will find the same hush and the same carved walkways through time.
In that quiet, if you listen closely, you can hear the future of Ohio’s parks: the planning meetings that took place behind closed doors, the volunteers who returned weekend after weekend to rebuild a trail, the partnerships forged with Indigenous communities and local businesses, and the quiet satisfaction of a system designed to welcome everyone. That is why Ohio’s parks have not only been celebrated for their beauty but also for how they are run. They offer a national example of how to balance access and preservation, cultural interpretation and recreation, economy and ecology. And they offer, above all, places where a person can stand, breathe, and remember the smallness and sturdiness of both stone and self.
Sources and Links
Ohio Governor’s Office — “Ohio’s State Parks Receive National Gold Medal Award for Excellence”
https://governor.ohio.gov/media/news-and-media/ohios-state-parks-receive-national-gold-medal-award-for-excellence
Ohio Department of Natural Resources — “Ohio State Parks Win National Award for Excellence”
https://ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/site/home/news-and-events/all-news/odnr-state-parks-named-best-sept25
Ohio Department of Natural Resources — Hocking Hills State Park (property page)
https://ohiodnr.gov/go-and-do/plan-a-visit/find-a-property/hocking-hills-state-park
Ohio Department of Natural Resources — Sustainability Performance Report (2024)
https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/upload/v1743515933/ohiodnr.gov/documents/parks/Sustainability/OhioStateParks_SustainabilityPerformanceReport_2024.pdf
Ohio DNR Annual Report 2024 (includes Great Council State Park opening and related items)
https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/upload/odnr/department/2024_ODNR_Annual_Report.pdf
Governor DeWine announcement — Great Council State Park groundbreaking
https://governor.ohio.gov/media/news-and-media/governor-dewine-odnr-break-ground-on-great-council-state-park-06272022
Spectrum News1 — “Ohio officially opens new Great Council State Park”
https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2024/06/07/ohio-great-council-state-park
Geology of the Hocking Hills region (historic technical report)
https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/upload/ohiodnr.gov/documents/geology/RI63_DeLong_1967.pdf
Discover Mohican / Mohican State Park resources and visitor guides
https://discovermohican.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AdventureGuideMagazine_2025.pdf
Mohican State Park — ODNR property page
https://ohiodnr.gov/go-and-do/plan-a-visit/find-a-property/mohican-state-park
Selected regional guides and visitor articles (examples of visitor perspective and trip-planning resources)
https://jetsettingfools.com/things-to-do-at-mohican-state-park/
https://discoveringhockinghills.com/exploring-old-mans-cave-a-natural-gem-in-hocking-hills/
https://victoriastravelsandtribulations.com/2025/02/08/old-mans-cave-ohios-paradise-in-hocking-hills/
