Trails & Ales Redux! Hocking Hills State Park / Rock House Pub

Summary

For this meetup, we will hike the best place to visit in Ohio: Hocking Hills State Park. Afterward, we'll have drinks and food at the Rock House Pub.

Multiple maps of Hocking Hills exist, and in my opinion, none of them are individually phenomenal. If you cobble them together, though, you can get a tolerably realistic picture of the area.

So, here's one map (in PDF form) of Hocking Hills. Here's a second map (as a JPG). I've also uploaded a third map to the Photos section of this event page.

About the Hike

We will hike the Lodge Connector, Whispering Cave to Old Man's Cave, Grandma Gatewood, and Whispering Cave Trails. This will be around 4 miles. Hocking Hills has some ups and downs and can be a little strenuous at parts, but we will not be in a rush.

Some spots along the trail can be pretty muddy. Hiking shoes and a change of socks (just in case) can be helpful.

Where We'll Meet

We will meet at the Hocking Hills Lodge at 2:00 p.m. The actual address of the lodge is 20020 OH-664, Logan, OH 43138. You can drive directly to the Lodge for this event. We'll meet just outside the main entrance.

However, for those who either wish to carpool, or simply follow me so they don't have to worry about getting lost, I will meet you in the parking lot of the Walmart Supercenter in Canal Winchester, where we will head out not later than 1:00 p.m. The actual address of this Walmart is 6674 Winchester Blvd, Canal Winchester, OH 43110.

The caveat is that you must let me know in advance if you want to do this! If I don't hear from anyone, I'll just assume we're all meeting at the Lodge and I'll head there directly myself. Please note that my car is too small and full of bric-a-brac to accommodate passengers in any case.

While the Lodge does have free wifi, cell service at Hocking Hills is extremely spotty. You might want to download an offline map of the area in Google maps before you head out if you're driving straight to the Lodge.

After the Hike

Rock House Pub is a separate lounge facility within the Lodge. Its weekend hours are 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. The Pub serves drinks, food, and pizza that I find comparable to Marco's. The Lodge also has a separate coffee shop called Cafe '22 that's open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The Lodge has a large common seating area with large comfy seats, tables, multiple fireplaces, and outdoor gas fire pits and seating.

Dessert?

It's not officially going to be part of this meetup, but you're going to be awfully close to the John Glenn Astronomy Park if you want to check it out...