Falling Water

Placed 20 years ago by Cache Owner BigDrano, Falling Water will bring us to a beautiful place.

In the 1830s, iron investors discovered these rich veins, buried in vast stands of trees ready-made for charcoal production, and built coal-powered furnaces. By the 1840s, the Heaton family had switched to bituminous coal straight from the ground.

Hedging their bets, the family also constructed a mill for carding wool, powered by Mill Creek. Like Silicon Valley and the internet, Mill Creeks sprang up across the state, as industrious millers tapped into the vast network of streams and rivers. Think of a machine, and you could power it with a waterwheel and a creek.

The blast furnace blasted off, and the millhouse turned into a storage facility for the furnace. In 1891, a man named Rogers opened the land and building as the very first park district in Ohio. An entire state and metro park system has followed his example. Generations have come to celebrate the joys of life, family, friends, and community, in this now public space, surrounded by the rich and beautiful stone of Ohio country.

We park beside the Pavilion and walk the serpentine road of Appalachian foothills.

A lazy trail leads to the dam, and up the hill.

We watch Lady Autumn exit the stage, as Old Man Winter stubbornly steps into the spotlight. Rushing water soothes and restores.

Across the spur, the degree of geotrail appears to be in the 40s. Exactly the average of our team’s respective ages. We got this. Now the ubiquitous question of how the (hint)rotten log might look after 20 rotting years?

Maybe something like this. The geopile is snug, perhaps in a now-petrified log.

Our simple expression of individual and community effort joins the centuries. In this wild place, we leave a tiny piece of ourselves.

Welcoming all human pilgrims, trees reach for our hands as we slip, slide, gasp, squeal, and exclaim our way down.

We left the sticks for you.