Massies Creek Upper Falls
Upper Falls
Massies Creek
Indian Mound Park
Cedarville, Ohio
You know, one of the best things about visiting a new waterfall is you never know what to expect, and goodness what surprise I got this weekend. For years now I’ve wanted to visit Cedar Cliff Falls in Cedarville, Ohio. Although man made, the awesome scenes I’ve seen over the years of the falls finally motivated me pay this place a visit over this past weekend. Located in Indian Mound Park just outside Cedarville, Ohio, this was our last stop on a windy cloudy day. Earlier in the day myself and good friend Bryan Janosick had visited the West Milton Cascades then drove up to Ludlow Falls. After shooting there we decided to stop by the Oregon District just outside Downtown Dayton and did some digging at a couple of record stores. Although I found a record I’d been looking for, for some time, in hindsight I kind of wish we had of bypassed the record shopping and went straight to the park since we arrived at a little after 7. The hike to Cedar Cliff Falls is a little over 1.25 miles from the southern trailhead parking lot. Immediately I was impressed with our surroundings as we began our hike, the landscape was a bog and there were lovely blue and white pastel flowers standing high above the groundcover. Further on yellow flowers began to mix in. The first section of the trail mostly follows an old rail line which was elevated above the boggy surroundings and 1000’s of blooming flowers. Eventually you come to a junction where there are a couple of options en route to the falls, you can either follow the Upper Rim Trail or you can follow the Lower Rim Trail, we opted for the low road and followed it along Massie Creek. What a treat, a lush green forest surrounding a tranquil creek is what greets you first on this section of the trail, but eventually that changes a little as you come upon a small creekside rock overhang that you pass under and the water drops across a small cascade. A short distance beyond on the trail we began to hear a low rumble, “surely this is the falls” I thought, but after passing another junction with the Upper Rim Trail we opted to continue to what we thought was a creek lever view of the falls. As we made our way to the top of a boulder it became quite apparent that the trail ended here, but what a scene that laid before our eyes! In the distance water cascades around boulders where nearly everything is covered in moss and ferns, then eventually dropping again around a massive boulder in the middle of the creek, which is not featured in this shot. I seriously felt like I’d just walked out of Ohio and stepped into the Pacific Northwest! For my first post of this beautiful area I thought I would share one of my last shots where I zoomed in to the furthest falls, although the effect I was expecting wasn’t what I got as the photo has a fairly high depth of field. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and light still having another ½ mile to the main falls we came to shoot, so we headed out, hopefully to return sooner than later.
