Cuyahoga Valley National Park
 

Hello,

Three of us will be visiting Cleveland and looking to visit Cuyahoga Valley NP for several hours, maybe from 10-3. What are the main attractions to see here? Any suggestions?

Thanks

The CVNP has a very good website. We access the park from Akron so we tend to visit the southern part of the park. i live in the city but the park is just 5 miles from our home.

There are trails to hike and the very popular Towpath Trail. Lots of bikers on this trail every day but especially on the weekends. The trail is flat and runs along the river. You will see beaver, deer, birds, turkey, turtles. It's a great trail.

We like to ride to the town of Peninsula and have breakfast, lunch or ice cream at Fishers or the Winking Lizard, then you can head north to the Canal Visitor Center--and eventually to Cleveland.

There is a Great Heron Rookery on Bath Rd. Lots of heron nesting there. They have a very impressive wingspan.

A wonderful feature of the park is the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. For $2 one way, we can put our bikes on the train and ride to another part of the Towpath Trail--we head north and then ride our bikes back down the trail, south--or vicea versa.

Look at the train's website www.cvsr.com for lots of other events. They have been advertising a children's ride on weekends with Thomas the Tank. I believe they also offer a scenic ride on the train for $10 on Sat. and Sun.

Hale Farm and Village is a wonderful recreated village showing life in the Western Reserve in the mid 1800's. It is adjacent to the CVNP. They often are offering special weekend programming also.

Thanks for the input. We ended up hiking the Brandywine Gorge trail, 1.5 mile loop, as well as the Ledges Trail. Really liked the big rocks and Ice Box Cave.

Had we had more time, would have brought some bikes for the towpath trail, but this was all we could do in about 5 hours.

I know this post is more than a year old but does anyone have any recommendations for a good place to stay while visiting the park?

Tell me more about Peninsula. What is Fishers? Is the Brandywine Gorge Trail hard? I want something easy like maybe the Towpath? I'd like to go this Saturday, supposed to be nice and I live in Lake Co and have never been.

Are the falls close to the parking lot, or do you hike to the falls?

amelie, the Falls are only about 100 yards from the parking lot. A very nice easy walk. There are stairs but not a lot and you can take them easy if you choose. Fishers is a small restaurant in Pennisula with outdoor seating but this weekend might not lend itself to that. We like the Winking Lizard across the street.

Thanks, maybe we'll check out the falls and go along the Towpath and then eat at Winking Lizard. Just looking at Fishers website and we'll see. We like Winking Lizard, we have one in Mentor.

Well we did what I had planned out and it was great! I can't wait to go back to CVNP.
I added my pics to the flickr group, http://www.flickr.com/groups/cvnp/
My username is tammimarie

tammimarie, your pictures are lovely!

Thank's, I got better ones this morning at my local park/pond since the sun was actually out!