Nature Walk in Ohiopyle, PA

CAUTION - Sensitive readers should be aware that viewer discretion is advised for this post. Nature is red in tooth and claw, etc., etc., and does not necessarily conform to our ideas of decent behavior (as a not-so-random example, black snakes do not always wait for an appropriate time, place or manner before mating, for instance). Consider yourself warned.

On our first day in Ohiopyle, we decided to take a hike along the Youghiogheny (pronounced "Yah-kuh-GAIN-ee") River. The trail we picked out, with the assistance of a local park ranger in the visitor center, was a loop cobbled together from the Great Gorge trail, Meadow Run trail, and the sidewalk through town. We couldn't figure out how to get to the trail from the visitor center, so we ended up driving to Cucumber Falls to start the loop:

I am not sure where the name "Cucumber Falls" comes from. The falls are no more cucumber-shaped than any other, and I didn't see any vegetable gardens nearby. (Although I suppose the pooled water is somewhat greenish looking in the shade.) The path was steep in places as we descended to the base of the falls and found our way to the Meadow Run trail.

The trail was tough going for the non-hikers among us, with lots of scrambling up and down rocks and tree trunks, so we took our time. We often paused to check out the Youghiogheny River which was always to our left on the trail.

We sat for while watching rafters and kayakers undertake the whitewater rapids we would take the next day (in a raft with a guide, contrary to local custom):



Further up the Meadow Run trail, we encountered some black snakes in the path. They weren't very interested in us, because they were somewhat wrapped up in each other (so to speak):



After my friends finally tore me and my camera away from this fascinating scene, we eventually reached the natural rock slides. There were a bunch of bathers (would-be sliders?), but we only saw one man brave the slides. He didn't seem to be in pain, but he wasn't riotously happy either. So no one followed him while we watched. I would have liked to try the slides, but didn't have a swimsuit handy.

After the slides, we came back out of the Meadow Run trail and took the sidewalk into town. There, we split up. The non-hikers said they would get ice cream and enjoy the town; the hikers said we would complete the loop, dammit! So we agreed to meet at Cucumber Falls in an hour or so.

The hiking contingent stopped at the visitor's center and got clarification about how to pick up the Great Gorge trail. The ranger told us that it would take us "a good hour and change" to take the Great Gorge trail to Cucumber Falls, so we knew we had to hustle to get to the end of the trail. (Of course, she may have predicted our travel time based on the number of hours it had been since she first advised us on the trails.) We started on our way.

Ironically, the Great Gorge trail was smooth and flat, truly a "walk in the park". The non-hikers would have loved it! It took us just 30 minutes to get to Cucumber Falls... and the non-hikers were late because they got carried away with shopping in town.