Brandywine Falls Is Twenty Minutes Away and It's Free

Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Brandywine Road near Sagamore Hills. Half-mile boardwalk from the lot to a sixty-five-foot waterfall over Bedford shale. That's it. That's the pitch.

The boardwalk drops through hemlocks and the air cools with each step. Ferns everywhere. Moss on every rock. The light filters through green in that way only gorges manage. When you hit the bottom, the falls pound into the pool hard enough to throw mist that catches whatever light is around — silver on overcast days, throwing rainbows on sunny mornings.

Go after heavy rain when the falls run full and the gorge smells like wet stone and turned earth. Spring for volume, fall for color, winter if you want to see sixty-five feet of frozen water that looks like something out of a Norse myth. No entrance fee.