Hocking Hills 2023 October Trip: Fall Colors, Bigfoot, and Asian Lady Beetles
Every year I plan a Fall trip to the Hocking Hills area, in the hopes of nailing the timing for peak color. I always book THE WEEK when according to many lists should be the week for color, only to always be too early or too late. Ohio is unpredictable at best, and the fact that I have to book a cabin so far in advance has meant that I don’t deviate outside of that week in the hopes that I eventually get it right.
Usually Mother Nature has other plans: drought, torrential rains, hot summer, cool summer, late spring, excessive winds - all of that has usually found a way to make it a week earlier than normal or a week later.
Not this year.
The week of October 23rd ended up being the sweetspot, even though right up to it I thought I was going to be late and robbed of peak once again. But as the days grew nearer and I watched reports of how the leaves were changing in the area, I knew that I had FINALLY nailed it!
5 days is a lot to recap in a blog post, so I’ll hit the highlights of a few of the places that I visited during the week. Because this time of year is all about colors and there is no real waterflow in Hocking Hills, my time was spent going to spots that didn’t have waterfalls, or trickles, or whatever was flowing at the time.
LAKE LOGAN
Lake Logan makes for an excellent spot for sunrise and sunset opportunities depending on the time of year, and this trip was no exception. I was there on two mornings during the trip, and came away with some “bangers”, as the kids might say. The square images below were shot on my Bronica S2A and various film stocks, while the panoramic images were shot with my Mamiya 645 ProTL with a custom 35mm panoramic back that I created by modifying the factory 35mm back.
AIRPLANE ROCK
Airplane Rock is one of the lesser-known spots in the area, at least it is lesser-known to most tourists. The rock outcrop is at the top of a long uphill climb on a horse trail. The views are similar to the outcrop at Conkle’s Hollow but there are far less people there.
On my third morning of the trip the forecast was calling for some good clouds, so I set Airplane Rock as my first stop of the day for sunrise. Unfortunately this meant hiking the trail up to it in the dark. And let me tell you, the dense woods in this area of Ohio can be DARK before the sun comes up. My high wattage light was being swallowed up by the darkness on the hike. I heard a pack of coyotes off in the distance, which was a little un-nerving in the dark. Then I heard the tree-nock off to my right somewhere in the woods. Then a minute later another nock to my left somewhere. I won’t say that I’m a believer in Bigfoot, but alone in the dark lets just say that I was highly motivated to get up the trail to and to my spot.
Unfortunately the sunrise never really happened due to some cloud cover, but I did get a few pops of light and it was definitely worth the hike. Maybe not being attacked by Bigfoot but since that didn’t happen I’ll call it a win. The shots below were taken on my Mamiya 645 ProTL with the pano back and my Nikon F100 35mm camera on various film stocks.
SMECK PARK
Smeck Park is part of the Fairfield County Parks District near Lancaster. It has a working farm, complete with a windmill that pumps water to a faucet you can use to fill up your water bottles. I enjoy stopping here every year, and this year with the fall colors it was a fantastic spot to pause, take some images, and have a nice lunch at one of the picnic tables. Images below were all shot with my Mamiya 645 ProTL on Kodak Ultramax 400 film.
ROCK MILL, MOUNT PLEASANT, and LANCASTER CEMETERY
While I was in the Lancaster area, I hit a few other spots in the area. While I’ve been to Mount Pleasant and Rock Mill a few times, I’ve never visited the Lancaster Cemetery. You can see the cemetery from the top of Mount Pleasant, among a lot of other views of the town. Definitely worth visiting all three of these locations, especially in the fall. The images below were shot on my Hasselblad 500cm, the Mamiya 645 ProTL with the pano back, and my Nikon F100 on various film stocks.
BENUA MANSION RUINS - CLEAR CREEK PARK
This is one of my favorite spots in the area - where else can you do a nice, long hike thru nature and end up at the ruins of a mansion? Images shot on my Mamiya 645 ProTL with the 35mm pano back and the standard 645 120 back on Kodak Gold stocks.
Before showing the images, I should also note that this is where I started to notice a lot of what I thought were Lady Beetles everywhere. At first I thought they were bees, but then I noticed they were not. There were swarms so bad in the area that while driving, my truck windshield was being coated with beetle guts. It was so bad it was on the local Columbus news channel. Turns out that they are “Asian Lady Beetles”. If you are interested, read more about them here.
COVERED BRIDGES, MORE CEMETERIES, AND OTHER SPOTS
Like I said before, there was so much to see and do in the area that I could write a super long post, but that would be TLDR. So, for now here are a few more random shots from the trip. All were shot on various film stocks and with different cameras.
I shot 21 rolls on the trip, which normally wouldn’t be a lot for me but the night I came home I had a Dress Rehearsal to shoot for a local theater group. That made for a long day and also meant that I needed to edit and deliver their images before I could start developing and scanning mine. I had the developing done rather quickly in only a few days, but scanning took some time with life, work, and household chores getting in the way. I still have about 3 rolls worth of images to scan, but I wanted to get this post done and out before too long passed!
That’s it for now. If you have any questions about the images or the places I went, please feel free to shoot me an email. I’d be happy to chat!
Thanks for reading,
Jeremy
