Hey.

I spent years disconnected from nature and all that came with it.
Luckily, there was a shift somewhere along the way and I haven’t looked back.

I created this blog so I could tell *you* all about it. ♡

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Chasing waterfalls at Ricketts Glen State Park

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Caitlyn

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Like I said, I hyperfixated on waterfalls while I was planning our summer road trips and that’s how we ended up here in Pennsylvania, driving a little over 3 hours from home to hike by a million waterfalls this past June.

The stats for all of the waterfalls in the park.

We stopped here to stretch out legs on our way to New York (to see even more waterfalls… go figure).

We arrived around 9am and there was plenty of space in the parking lot (on a Wednesday). The bathrooms are real flush toilets with a real sink. There’s also a drinkable water fountain.

The start of the trail at the parking lot.

Ricketts Glen Falls Trail loop

We originally planned to do the entire 7-ish mile loop to tour the entire park, but after looking at the trail map realized there was a ~2-mile out-and-back section that we could easily edit out.

The original plan: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/pennsylvania/ricketts-glen-falls-loop
The trail we did: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/pennsylvania/ricketts-glen-falls-trail-loop

AllTrails claims it’s four miles long, but that doesn’t factor in doing any off the off-trail walking to be up-close to the falls. We clocked more like five.

We started counterclockwise and did ‘The Highland Trail’ (see the map above) first, to get the boring part with no waterfalls out of the way.

At the bottom where you can veer down, we skipped it went straight from Erie to Wyandot. This intersection is marked by huge plaque of the map, a big boulder with the NPS seal on it (below), and a bridge – so don’t worry, you’ll know where you’re going.

The first waterfall you see from this way.

It was so, so hot this day and I was super grateful for all of the constant shade and breeze coming off the water. There were SO MANY mosquitos and I would never come here without being covered in bug spray.

There’s no ridge or shore to the river, it just ends right there. I imagine it floods so badly here.

You walk by 21 different waterfalls. The one below was 100% my favorite.
It’s Ganoga Falls and it’s 94 feet tall.

Everyone else must feel that way too because t’s usually the cover photo people show when talking about this place.

Introducing myself to Ganoga Falls.

You won’t be able to stop yourself from wanting to walk to the bottom, so please be careful and be prepared for it to be muddy, maybe even sandy, with wet leaves, and just so so so slippery.

Ike said hello to her too.

I also love this trail because it has so many aesthetic wooden bridges and stone stairs. It takes forever because of having to stop to take photos every five seconds.

And you can go under this one which is pretty cool.
(I know I don’t have to remind you to be careful not to slip for the thousandth time, but…)

Ike really likes to pet fluffy moss, and I bet he’ll think twice next time…

Hey, at least millipedes are less scary than centipedes.

Sorry for the unexpected bug photo, but can you blame them for being so happy? I dunno, this place was seriously just so lush and alive. Everything drips water, the bugs are juicy, ferns and moss are growing in every gap.

Each waterfall has a small wooden plaque by it that says its name and I respect the amount of work it took them to do all of that. This whole area was deemed a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service.

~*The Glen Falls Natural Area*~

Hiking poles and shoes with good tread and ankle support help so much here. I definitely butt-slid to get around in some places.

The cutest hopscotch.

I realize this is probably kind of niche – but, what’s crazy is that after allllll of the pretty waterfall-related stuff we saw, my favorite part was that we saw a metric TON of wild-growing huperzia.

I swear I took more photos of them than I did the waterfalls. It was pretty amazing to see it thriving in a four-season area in the middle of random Pennsylvania. Too cool.

We are huge houseplant lovers and we still have 100+ plants in our house. Huperzia is notoriously difficult to grow indoors and we’ve tried a couple of times, so it was such a random novelty to stumble a cross it… like, an entire MEADOW of it.

And other pic of Ganoga Falls for fun:

The 7-ish mile falls trail via AllTrails:
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/pennsylvania/ricketts-glen-falls-loop

The 4-ish mile falls trail via AllTrails:
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/pennsylvania/ricketts-glen-falls-trail-loop

To learn more about Pennsylvania’s Ricketts Glen State Park:
https://www.dcnr.pa.gov/StateParks/FindAPark/RickettsGlenStatePark/Pages/default.aspx

And to learn more about huperzia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huperzia

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