Visit
Cave Canyon
Where the Forest
tells its story
amidst cliffs, springs & grottos 
Visitor Gateway to the
3,000 acre Arc of Appalachia preserve system
The Cave Canyon preserve lies in the heart of the Highlands Nature Sanctuary, largest of the Arc's eleven total preserves. Cave Canyon is a wonderful destination for nature enthusiasts, hikers, and families wanting to immerse their children in the beauty of nature. We offer three spectacularly beautiful hiking trails. An Appalachian Forest Museum, featuring the cultural and natural history of our Eastern Forests, is under construction, but temporary exhibits and audiovisuals can still be enjoyed. Situated on the high bluffs of the Rocky Fork Gorge, Cave Canyon is a botanical hotspot for rare plants and lush wildflower displays, as well as a place of outstanding geologic scenery. Cave Canyon is open to the public for hiking during our open season of April through October during the days and hours listed below. Guided tours are also available on most weekends.
Serious Naturalists, for more information on the natural history of the Rocky Fork Gorge, please click here.
If you have previously visited 7 Caves, be sure to click here before planning your trip, as this destination is no longer a cave tourist park.
Be sure to scroll to the bottom of this page to read the History of 7 Caves and Cave Canyon.
Click here if you wish to stay overnight: Lodging & Nature Retreats Area Information for Visitors
For one general entrance fee, visitors may enjoy:
Ñ
Three breathtakingly beautiful Self Guided Trails
Ñ
Appalachian Nature Book Store
Ñ
Access to the Cliff Deck, overlooking the Rocky Fork Gorge
Ñ
Audiovisual trail orientation on the Eastern Forest
Other options for a small additional fee, June-August, see below for details
Ñ
1850
Frontier Naturalist Living History Hike
Trails at
Cave Canyon lead into some of the the Eastern Forest's most stunning scenery --
sheer vertical walls of a limestone canyon, towering hemlocks and beech trees,
strange and wonderful rock formations, and
ancient cedar trees clinging to the rim of the gorge. The region is known for
its small caves, 23 in all, which
have been returned to darkness and are
now being restored as habitat for native bats and other cave dwellers.
Although visitors will be able to walk past the entrance of their dark mouths,
cave exploration is not included among our offerings.
The Three Self Guided Trails are as
follows.
All trails are narrow, but
are relatively level except for a few
flights of stone stairs. Unless you have knee or hip problems, you should be
able to
navigate them. Sorry, pets are not allowed in the preserve.
Valley of the Ancients -- a rock-lined trail curves down to the Rocky Fork Creek, winding through the bottom of a 100 foot high vertical dolomite gorge. Walk beneath towering hemlocks and rare white cedar trees of great antiquity, viewing the art of breathtaking panoramas sculpted from the elements of rock and water. .25 mile loop
Etawah Woods Loop Trail -- This trail offers a breathtaking trek along the rim of the Rocky Fork Gorge, with beautiful views of the canyon floor. Mid-way is a spur that takes you down a long flight of stairs into the canyon, below giant hemlocks, and eventually right up to the water, where one can enjoy the famous geologic feature known as the three sisters – three giant slumpblocks mid-stream. .33 mile loop
Big Beech Loop Trail -- See the forest through the eyes of a frontier naturalist while walking through an authentic old-growth Beech Forest. Walk by ancient towering Tulip Poplars and massive Beech trees – such a rare experience in modern Ohio! This is not just a forest of old trees, but an intact ecosystem and forest community. .25 mile loop
ALSO AVAILABLE:
A Living History Tour circa 1850 into Cave Canyon, led by William Sullivant, Frontier Naturalist, son of the Founder of Columbus, and discover of Sullivantia sullivantia, one of Cave Canyon's rarest flowers. The theatre engages the imagination of children while the environmental message of the script is a moving and thoughtful experience for adults. Highly recommended tour.
Eco-Theatrical Hike is offered Saturday and Sundays from Memorial Day to Labor Day weekends at 11:30 am and 2:00 pm. and on autumn weekends as demand and staff allow. Take a walk with Ohio frontier naturalist, William Sullivant, as together you explore and record the rich natural history of lush Cave Canyon. Travel to the mid-1800's when the memory of the unbroken Eastern wilderness was still alive, and fragments of the ancient forest remained. The hike leads you on the Cave Canyon Trail, available only with a guide, featuring springs, sinkholes, cave entrances in a verdant steep-walled canyon -- a fairy-land of geologic beauty and rare botanicals. Because caves are one of Ohio’s rarest and most disturbed of all of its native ecosystems, participants will not actively explore the caves. Hikers will, however, walk by their cool, dark entrances, and walk partway into one of them so that visitors can experience the feeling of darkness, mystery, and coolness, as well as learn about their potential as refugiums for new bat populations. The trail is about 1/4 mile long, and guided hikes generally take about an hour.
More on William Sullivant’s Ecotheatre Hike. A living history 19th Century Ohio botanist William Sullivant, takes you on the Cave Canyon trail to share with you an exciting honor he has recently received. The year is 1853. The famous and prestigious international botanist, Asa Gray, and his botanical colleagues in New York State, have just named William’s newest plant discovery -- found right here in Cave Canyon -- after William’s surname. The wildflower, now called Sullivantia sullivantia, is a very rare saxifrage that has previously been unknown to science, and is found in only a few places in the world. William, son of the founder of Columbus, is a wealthy banker and capitalist who has devoted his study to natural history. His father was the surveyor of Columbus as well as much of Kentucky and Ohio’s land base. William’s dialogue on this hike is a compelling treatise from a highly educated man who is skilled in natural lore and finds in his heart the beginning seeds of American conservation. His father once walked among old-growth trees and the Native Americans. Now, William Sullivant must place a foot in two worlds – a rapidly diminishing wilderness and the domesticated world that financially supports his outdoor studies. You will find this program thought provoking and compelling, as you are drawn into the theatre yourself as one of William’s circle of invited friends and supporters. This theatre of this program is loved by children, and the content is stimulating and provocative for adults.
General Entry Fee
Includes Museum facilities,
orientation slide presentation, and three trails available for hiking on one's
own
$10.00 adults, $5.00 for
children 15 and under (3 and under FREE)
Parents Please Note:
Trails are too uneven for strollers. Please bring carriers.
Sorry, pets are not permitted.
Optional Additional Guided
Hike --Frontier Naturalist Eco-theatre Tour
$5.00 adults, $3.00 youth
100% OF YOUR
ENTRANCE FEE SUPPORTS THE EDUCATION AND LAND PRESERVATION EFFORTS OF OUR
NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION. For more information on the Arc of Appalachia Preserve
System, please click here.
Children and private groups of 12 or over, please contact
us for special arrangements by calling 937-365-1935.
Because Cave Canyon is a
protected ecosystem with dangerous cliffs and heights, children must be accompanied by
parents or guardians.
Please see schedule below for hours.
Help us protect this delicate natural area by not visiting other than during published times.
Days of Operation, 2008
Summer:
Open every day but
Wednesday June 1st through August 31st
see hours below
Holidays:
Open
Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day
Spring & Fall:
Open Saturday and Sunday
from April 5th to October 26th
Doors open to
arrivals
10:30am - 4:00 pm, facility closes at 5:00 pm.
There are no food concessions--please bring water and packed lunches.
Picnic tables available to guests, please pack out all trash and separate
out recyclables
Please inquire about compost for food scraps.
For more
information, please call our general information line at 937-365-1935.
The
Story behind 7
Caves & Cave Canyon
please also see the Rocky Fork Gorge
The 100-year old private cave-tourist park named 7 Caves in 1928 has been long admired for its wealth of rare plants, deep dolomite gorge and authentic caves. It is the very same property whose ’For Sale Sign’ triggered the founding of The Arc of Appalachia Preserve System back in 1995. At that time, though the non-profit organization was formed to buy and protect the 60-acre park, the $1.2 million price tag was way above its means. As a compromise, only the perimeter land around the park was purchased — 47 acres in all — leaving 13 acres in private hands to continue operating as a tourist attraction. In the years that followed, the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System grew from 47 acres to 3000, completely surrounding the 13-acre in-holding. To have an opportunity to purchase this natural landmark and reunite it with the rest of the gorge was long our organization's heartfelt aspiration. Finally in 2004 and 2005 we began raising funds to accomplish our the long-held vision.
The Past.
The cavern-rich region of the Rocky Fork Gorge
attracted the attention of European settlers early in our state’s history. In
the early 1800’s local families would follow the Rocky Fork upstream to access
the scenic gorge, exploring the mud-laden caves with lanterns, and even holding
dances in the grotto of
Dancing Cave.
Early entrepreneurs named the cave
system Highland Caves and eventually charged an
entrance fee of 10 cents to tourists traveling by horseback and carriage who
came to explore this natural wonder from farther away. By the 1890’s, visitors
would stay at the Rocky Fork Hotel in the little town of
Paint
on State Route 50,
wading up the Rocky Fork with fishing
poles and picnic baskets, or they would ride horses along the rutted path that
would eventually become Cave Rd. Unfortunately during this time period,
extensive damage was done to the small caves. Every one of the thousands of
stalactites were removed by careless visitors.
In 1928, Clyde Chaney from Indiana made a trip to Ohio that seeded the beginning of dramatic changes for the Highland Caves. He came to visit relatives living in nearby Bourneville, and, of course, family activities included a trip to the popular caves. Clyde immediately fell in love with the hemlock gorge, the fern-draped rocks, and the sunken caves — and, in them he saw expansive possibilities. He returned to Indiana and persuaded five investors to fund the purchase of the caves — resulting in the Chaney’s permanent move to Ohio.
Over an unbroken period of twenty-five years, Clyde and his family developed the gorge into a first-class tourist destination which he named Seven Caves. Clyde improved the trace that led to the caves from Route 50, building a road that could accommodate motor traffic. He cleared mud from the caves, improved the trails with rock steps and rock walls, ran electricity into the caverns, and engraved wooden signs that named the rock features with words that sparked children’s imaginations. These changes actually helped to preserve the beauty of the area, as visitors were now encouraged to stay on the trails. In short order, wildflowers grew right up to the trail edges.
More controversially,
he then raised the price to 25 cents, despite protests from the local community. Chaney’s resourceful use of advertising — including placing signs and
arrows along Rt. 50 all the way to Indiana, and
stapling advertisements to visitors’ wooden car bumpers — helped people discover
the caves from beyond the local neighborhood; most of whom found the rock
formations, refreshing scenery, and mysterious caves well worth the price of
admission.
Clyde passed away at the young age of 59 in 1951. The following year the Seven Caves was sold to Robert Judkins. The Judkins family continued to improve and promote the caves during the heady days of the 70’s — when the popularity of family camping and state park vacations reached an all-time peak. Tucked between Rocky Fork State Park and Pike State Park — the Seven Caves served as a bustling tourist attraction all summer long. In 1981 the Judkins passed the torch to Chet and Cherry Miller, who were the last private owners of 7 Caves, operating the historic attraction for almost 25 years. Under the care of these three families, thousands and thousands of families and children have been exposed to the beauty of nature and the magic of the region’s caverns.
It is difficult to find words that can
communicate the magic and ambience of the caves. Not in the least has their
geologic and botanical beauty diminished over the years. Water continues to
bring the gorge to life — as revealed in the valley’s sparkling waterfalls, the
morning mist that spills over canyon walls, and the cold springs and seeps that
make this protected canyon a botanical paradise. Ancient white cedars still
cling to the cliff’s precarious rim, and towering hemlocks remain guardians at
its base. And the seven caves — portals to the underground — still yawn
mysteriously among the fern-draped canyon walls of Sullivantia Run.
In April, wildflower displays remain the best in the state. The most spectacular floral display is what is known as the Pyramid of the Trilliums. Here large-flowered trilliums tumble out of a side valley in incomprehensibly high numbers. Earlier in the spring, the rare and diminutive snow trilliums can be seen clinging to the bare gray rocks. By summer these vertical dolomite rocks are so densely blanketed with bulblet ferns, wild hydrangea, and ginger that the rocks are hidden until the heavy frosts of November sweep the rock faces clean once again.
The Future. Even for the caves, time passes and the years move on. Today’s modern youth are less familiar with Chaney’s imaginative storybook characters than were the children of the forties and the fifties. Despite the immeasurable joy and service
Seven Caves had gifted the world over the decades, forces were in motion
that make change inevitable
as attendance began a slow decline after 1980.
In 2006 the Arc officially took over ownership of 7 Caves and ushered it into its next chapter of service — transforming
its recreation theme to one that also included education, restoring the caves to
a more natural condition, and gently and
respectfully guided the park back to its wilderness roots.
In our restoration work our organization has removed miles
of ageing electric lighting from the caves, inviting the bats to reclaim their ancient home. Current renovation continues on what was the old gift shop, transforming this elegant structure into what will be the world's first museum to interpret America's Eastern temperate forest -- a forest which once covered the eastern third of the United States. We celebrate the fact that we finally have had the honor of reuniting the heart of the Rocky Fork Gorge with the 2000 acres of Highlands Nature Sanctuary, the largest of the Arc's preserve regions -- thereby fulfilling a dream that began in 1995 when a sanctuary for the Eastern Forest was first conceived.For the much older dream witnessed by Clyde Chaney seventy-six years ago — where in an enchanted landscape people could touch the magic of nature and find themselves transformed — we are simply one more chapter in a long and ever-changing story. May the Arc of Appalachia continue to ably serve Clyde Chaney’s mission to bring nature and people together. As always, the magic of the Rocky Fork Gorge lives on!
|
for more information THE DREAM: Home Page The.Arc Land.Acquisitions ARC.Biodiversity Nature.Notes GETTING INVOLVED: Internships Donations Volunteering Land.Stewards Contact Us/Link.Up! VISITING: Cave Canyon (7Caves) Calendar.of.Events Lodging Wilderness.Hiking Directions
SPECIAL HIGHLIGHTS:
2008.Wildflower.Pilgrimage
Saving Spruce
Hill
|
