I was lucky enough recently to take a few weeks of vacation and head west, driving 1600 miles down the West Coast from Portland to San Francisco, visiting three different National Parks — hiking and backpacking through Crater Lake, Redwoods, and Yosemite.
Simply put, it was incredible.
A week after I returned, the "Sound of Ideas" team assembled at Happy Days Lodge in Peninsula for our latest “Community Tour,” which celebrated 50 years of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
The timing couldn’t have been better.
I could pen pages about the crystalline waters of Crater Lake, about Redwood trees bigger than I could ever have imagined, my neck hurting from constantly staring up into the canopy, and about Yosemite’s famous granite cliffs. Five thousand-foot walls with names like El Capitan and Half Dome. They were the definition of awe inspiring.
Seeing those iconic parks and what they had to offer was amazing. And some may think that coming back to flat Ohio would have been a let down. But it wasn't. Immediately diving into producing a show about the national park in our own backyard, CVNP, was a real joy and made me realize the gem we have right here.
I can't even begin to count the many miles I've clocked while on my bike, cruising down the CVNP's Towpath. One time, a friend and I decided to just turn our bike lights off and finish the ride in darkness and silence — except for the fireflies and frogs.
Not the safest decision, but magical nonetheless.
A recurring theme during the Community Tour conversation was how hard the park works to connect with communities across Northeast Ohio. The national park partners with groups like Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Canalway Partners, Summit Metroparks and others to bring people that have traditionally felt excluded from wild spaces into the park, hitting trails, kayaking, biking and engaging in mindfulness activities.
Another interesting facet of the conversation was how Park Superintendent Lisa Petit tied the 1969 burning of the Cuyahoga River to the 1974 creation of Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area (which was eventually classified a National Park in 2000). Many of us can think of those pictures of Carl Stokes, his hand covered in Cuyahoga River sludge, but the superintendent beautifully drew a line from how public outrage over the polluted Cuyahoga was another factor in the decision to protect the natural spaces the exist within the Cuyahoga Valley.
The accessibility of Cuyahoga Valley National Park was also on display at the Community Tour. Admittedly, we’re not Yosemite nor the Grand Canyon, and we're not claiming to be. But CVNP is a park where someone in Peninsula, Independence or Bedford can take a short walk or drive and be at a trailhead inside the park. That’s a far cry from having to drive hours out into the desert to visit Arches or Zion. Those parks are amazing, but they cater to certain demographics who have the means to visit. CVNP really feels like a park for the people.
I’ll close with something Petit said that will stick with me. It’s a sentiment that I already felt, was reinforced by my time out West, and is something I'll work to engage with more in each of my trips down to CVNP.
She said the National Parks are “an American ideal that people put their faith in … because these are places where life memories are made, where emotional connections are made, and where you go to renew yourself.”
You don’t have to fly across the country and climb a mountain to renew yourself. It's a great time and I recommend it to anyone who can do it. I bet everyone can make some time to visit the Cuyahoga Valley. Turn off your phone for a few minutes, and make the kind of emotional connection, surrounded by the beauty of nature, that so many of us need right now.
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