Field Notes Ohio

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117 parks in 7 regions

Cedar Falls

Logan · Hocking County

Wide cascade over a shelf of Blackhand sandstone

50 ftheight

Moderatehike

Visiting information you can trust

Content last reviewed: September 2026 — this is when Field Notes Ohio's content was last checked, not a live status.
Primary official source: Official page
Location confidence: Verified property location
Published coordinates for the falls or its trailhead
Check current conditions: Official conditions or closures

Prices, hours, closures, campsite availability and trail conditions shown elsewhere on this page are not live — always confirm with the official source before you go.

Hocking Hills' broadest waterfall, a wide sandstone cascade with the biggest year round flow of any falls in the park.

Height: About 50 feet
Trail: About 0.5 mile round trip via the Democracy Steps
Managed by: ODNR Division of Parks and Watercraft
Best time: After rain or snowmelt, when it has the highest volume of any falls in the park
Rock type: Blackhand sandstone
Accessibility: Not wheelchair accessible; stairs and uneven footing

When it flows

Carries the highest year round volume of any falls in Hocking Hills. Heaviest after rain and snowmelt, it becomes a thinner sheet by late summer but rarely dries up completely.

The story

Cedar Falls drops over Blackhand sandstone, a Mississippian age formation laid down roughly 350 million years ago as sand in an ancient river delta. Queer Creek later cut down through the rock, and meltwater from the retreat of the last glaciers helped carve the deep gorge and the falls' broad ledge. The name is a misnomer: early settlers mistook the tall hemlocks around the falls for cedar trees. A grist mill was built above the falls in the mid 1800s to harness the water power for grinding grain, and the surrounding land became part of the growing Hocking Hills State Park system in the early to mid 1900s, with Civilian Conservation Corps crews building trails, steps and stonework in the 1930s.

Local storytellers also link the site to a darker chapter of the region's past. Oral histories describe the gorge as part of a route Shawnee and Delaware groups used to move captives, and old timers spoke of a since vanished beech tree at the top of the falls carved with a grim inscription. None of that carving survives to confirm the story, so it remains local folklore layered onto a documented Native American travel corridor through the hills.

Height is sometimes given as high as 60 feet in older guides; 50 feet is the figure used on the park's own visitor pages.

Stay behind railings and on marked trails. Wet rock at the top and base of a falls is slick in every season, and most Ohio falls do not allow swimming, wading or climbing. Flow depends on rain: many falls are a trickle in late summer and at their best after a wet spell, in spring, or frozen in a hard winter.

The road to hell tree

Storytellers in the hills once pointed to a huge beech tree above the falls carved with the words 'This is the road to hell, 1782,' said to have been cut by a captive being marched through the gorge along an old Shawnee and Delaware trail.

Behind the legend

The tree is long gone, and no photograph or physical record of the carving survives. The story is passed down through local oral history rather than any documented source, so it should be treated as folklore built around a real Native American travel route through the gorge.

If you go

Ask a park naturalist about the story on a guided hike, but do not expect to find any trace of the tree along the modern trail.