Hiking Fun in Yellow Springs

So anyone that follows me on social media knows that my family (like legit, mom, Dad, sister, kids, niece and nephew) all enjoy going hiking. We make it a family affair (including carrying the little one on our shoulders after she poops out). I’m constantly on the look out for great places to hike that give us a bit of variety, so as I was searching I came across the area of Yellow Springs Ohio. I was super excited because it has a ton of trails (over 2000 acres of woodland and rivers edge hiking trails in Glen Helen, John Bryan State Park and Clifton Gorge). and WATERFALLS! I knew the family would be totally up for a water adventure, so after church one Sunday we headed up to Yellow Springs to see what kind of trouble we could get into!

This park is HUGE so without really knowing where we were going we found a place to park and ended up on the Glen Helen Multi-trail loop which is about 4 and 1/2 miles around.
Already this park was different than we were used to – trees that really tower, bridges, boulders and narrow paths. It reminded me a bit of Hocking Hills (I can’t wait to take the kids there this fall).

We ran across a fresh spring ‘waterfall’ within the first few minutes and the kids jumped right in (literally) it was a pretty hot day so I didn’t mind, though I wish I would of brought an extra outfit (or two) and had them wear their swim trunks!
Miss Sassy pants enjoyed playing in the water too – we do hike quite a bit, so I think she was shocked there was actually water she could play in!
The boys love to climb on anything and everything, so we allowed them where it was permitted.

About mid way in, we found the mother of all waterfalls (well, at least for the kids) and they got super excited to jump in and play. Now I am not entirely sure that playing in the falls is something that is usually permitted since on our way back out of the trails, we saw some park rangers headed to the direction of the falls with a few flyers about some rules (I still don’t know what they said for sure, but I wanted to give a disclaimer that we didn’t see anything posted when we let the kids play)

But the boys had a blast and didn’t want to leave! I love seeing them enjoy the outdoors and not have their nose stuck in a tablet or playing video games. I would take them hiking every day if I could.

We enjoyed a few hours of hiking, stopped and had a picnic lunch at one of the picnic areas and headed home, but we will be back!
If you are looking for a fun new place to hike you definitely need to check it out!