Ash Cave Hocking Hills Ohio

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by Lisa Wooten

Title

Ash Cave Hocking Hills Ohio

Artist

Lisa Wooten

Medium

Photograph - Photographs

Description

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In the southernmost reaches of Hocking Hills is Ash Cave - beyond doubt the most spectacular feature of the entire park. Ash Cave is the largest, most impressive recess cave in the state.
The approach to Ash Cave is through a narrow gorge lined with stately hemlocks, massive beech trees and various other hardwoods. The valley floor offers brilliant displays of wildflowers in the all seasons including large flowered trillium, Dutchman's breeches, trout lily, Jack-in-the Pulpit and jewelweed. The narrow gorge is approximately one-fourth mile in length and with astonishing suddenness gives way to the tremendous overhanging ledge and cave shelter.
The horseshoe-shaped cave is massive; measuring 700 feet from end to end, 100 feet deep from the rear cave wall to its front edge with the rim rising 90 feet high. A small tributary of the East Fork of Queer Creek cascades over the rim into a small plunge pool below. The cave was formed like the others in this region; the middle layer of the Blackhand has been weathered or eroded while the more resistant upper and lower zones have remained intact.
Ash Cave is named after the huge pile of ashes found under the shelter by early settlers. The largest pile was recorded as being 100 feet long, 30 feet wide and 3 feet deep. The source of the ashes is unknown but is believed to be from Indian campfires built up over hundreds of years. One other belief is that the Indians were smelting silver or lead from the rocks. Still another theory claims that saltpeter was made in the cave. No matter the source, several thousand bushels of ashes were found. A test excavation of the ashes in 1877 revealed sticks, arrows, stalks of coarse grasses, animal bones in great variety, bits of pottery, flints and corn cobs.
It is obvious the cave was used for shelter by early inhabitants. The recess shelter also served as a workshop for Indians where maidens ground corn and prepared meals, and where braves fashioned arrow and spear points and skinned and dressed game. The cave provided a resting place for travelers along the main Indian trail which followed the valleys of Queer and Salt creeks. This trail connected the Shawnee villages and the Kanawha River region of West Virginia with their villages along the Scioto River at Chillicothe. The trail was used after the start of the frontier wars to march prisoners captured along the Ohio River to the Indian towns on the upper Scioto River. The old Indian trail is now State Route 56.
More recent uses of Ash Cave were for camp and township meetings. Pulpit Rock, the largest slump block at the cave's entrance served as the pulpit for Sunday worship service until a local church could be built. The cave lends itself well for large gatherings due to its enormous size and incredible acoustic qualities. In fact, two spots under the recess have the qualities of a "whispering gallery."
Picnic facilities are offered adjacent to the parking lot. The restrooms and trail leading to Ash Cave are wheelchair accessible.
Hocking Hills State Park is a non-contiguous state park in the Hocking Hills region of Hocking County, Ohio, United States; it is contiguous with the Hocking State Forest. Within the park are several spectacular rock formations.
The park contains seven separate sections: Ash Cave, Cantwell Cliffs, Cedar Falls, Conkle’s Hollow, Old Man’s Cave, Rock House and Whispering Cave. Ash Cave, Old man’s Cave and Whispering Cave are each examples of recess caves. Cantwell Cliffs and Conkle’s Hollow each feature a narrow, deep gorge; Rock House is a cliffed area with a rock shelter; Cedar Falls is a large waterfall, but each of the park areas except Rock House contain waterfalls.
Hocking County was named after the Hockhocking River. Hockhocking, in the Delaware tongue, signifies a bottle. In Shawnee, Wea-tha-Kagh-Qua-sepe, meant bottle river. The Hockhocking River had a waterfall of nearly 20 feet located about 6 or 7 miles northwest of Lancaster. Above the falls, the creek was very narrow and straight, forming the “bottle” neck.
The Hockhocking enters the county from Good Hope Township in the northwest and then flows southwest, touches Marion Township, continues through Falls and Green Townships, and exits the county through northwestern Starr Township. The river is then in Athens County.2
History: The Adena culture is believed to be one of the first inhabitants of the area of Hocking Hills 1700s – Native American Tribes of Delaware, Wyandot, and Shawnee travelled through and lived in the area 1818 – Hocking County created in Ohio 1830s – Powder mill was built 1840 – Hocking Canal was completed allowing for more settlers to travel there 1924 – After local popular hiking areas were threatened by the accessibility of more traffic, the State Forest Law was passed in 1915 allowing the state to purchase the first parcel of land in Hocking Hills around Old Man’s Cave.34
More than 330 million years ago, the Hocking Hills State Park area was relatively level and was covered by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. For millions of years, the ocean’s currents deposited immense amounts of sand and gravel. After millions of years, the ocean receded, and the sandy layers bonded with silica to form the Black Hand Sandstone that underlies the area. It formed like a sandwich, with a hard top and bottom and a soft middle layer. When the Appalachian Mountains arose, form and feature were cast upon the area and created Hocking Hills State Park.
Hocking Hills State Park was hemmed in by the ancient north-flowing Teahs River to the west, and the then north-flowing Hocking to the east. The landscape remained fairly static for millions of years. Any changes were minuscule, and were slow to develop. When the Wisconsin Glacier began melting back to the north about 10,000 years ago, the landscape would undergo dramatic changes. The glacier stopped in northern Hocking County, so the area suffered indescribable flooding. The ancient Teahs River was buried under tons of glacial silt, and the direction of the Hocking River was reversed.
When the glacial torrents found cracks in the hard capstone, the water poured through to flush out the soft middle layer. This left long tunnels where the gorges are today. Eventually, the weight of the tops caused them to come crashing down. The “slump rocks” in the gorges today are what’s left of the hard top layer. In just a few centuries, the rushing waters of the glacier carved the soft middle layer of sandstone into the myriad dimples and wrinkles that decorate the cliffs and grottos today. Early settlers in Muskingum County found an ancient black human handprint on a cliff that is part of this same sandstone formation. That is the same “Black Hand Sandstone” that is seen in six areas of the Hocking Hills State Park. Wikipedia

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December 18th, 2017