Cuyahoga Valley National Park

The Cuyahoga was so polluted by the 1960s that its surface caught fire, an event that helped drive the clean water legislation of the following decade, and the valley around it is now a national park with fish, beavers and bald eagles back in the river. It is an unusual park, threaded between two cities and dotted with farms and villages rather than sealed off from them. The Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath Trail runs the length of it on the old canal mule path, flat and easy for walking and cycling, and a scenic railroad runs alongside, with a bike-aboard service that lets cyclists ride one way and take the train back. Brandywine Falls drops twenty metres into a shale gorge.

What you actually see

• Brandywine Falls - a twenty-metre fall into a shale gorge, on a boardwalk.
• The Towpath Trail - flat cycling and walking on the old canal mule path.
• The scenic railroad - a heritage line through the valley with bikes aboard.
• The Ledges - sandstone cliffs and passages on a forest loop trail.

When to go

May to October is the main season, with autumn colour through October the highlight; the towpath stays usable in winter and the railroad runs a seasonal schedule. Spring brings wildflowers and mud. Weekends at Brandywine Falls are very busy and the car park fills.

Honest expectations

This is a quiet valley of woods, farmland and a modest river rather than a landscape park, and visitors arriving with western national parks in mind are often puzzled by it. The falls car park fills by mid-morning at weekends. Roads, railways and towns run right through, so it never feels remote.

Nearby

Cleveland and Akron bracket the park; the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland.