Cliff Run Cascades. Photo by Lewis Ulman.
Cliff Run
a new 300-acre preserve in Ross County
Project Cost - Phases 2 & 3 $1,242,510
Current balance yet to raise: $86,976
Stewardship Funds critically needed
Cliff Run Preserve - one of the Arc’s newest - has been almost a decade in the making. It lies just a few miles north of the Highlands Nature Sanctuary on the eastern boundary of 5,650-acre Paint Creek State Park. The preserve protects two outstanding waterways in a classic karst landscape: Cliff Run and its smaller tributary, Lewis Gorge. Both streams boast impressively deep, vertical-sided gorges with stunning rock features.
Like most karst landscapes, Cliff Run Preserve has exceptionally showy wildflower displays in the Spring. Even before the property was purchased by the Arc, the previous owners permitted us to share the gorge with our Wildflower Pilgrimage participants. Drifts of flowers cling to 50-foot vertical cliffs that border the limestone-bottomed creek and festoon the narrow riparian corridors bordering the gorges’ waterways. This preserve is a karst country floral showcase at its best!
The Arc’s land stewardship team has recently developed two exceptionally beautiful public hiking trails. The trails are enhanced with beautifully crafted bridges including a floating bridge that is in close proximity to a thriving beaver colony.
Scroll beneath the photo gallery for more detailed information.
A Premier Karst Landscape. Karst is an uncommon landscape type in Ohio because most of the state’s limestone and dolomite bedrocks are deeply buried under glacial till. Karst refers to landscapes anywhere on the planet where alkaline bedrocks - usually limestone or dolomite - lie close to the earth’s surface. Situated above an ancient formation of “Peebles Dolomite,” Cliff Run Preserve is a genuine karst landscape, boasting such classic features as bluffs, sinkholes, seeps, springs, grottos, and a mile of vertical-walled dolomite canyon. The karst bluffs and waterways found at Cliff Run represent intact and healthy native ecosystems, as evidenced by the presence of abundant spring wildflower displays, exceptional water quality, and high tree species diversity.
Cliff Run Preserve’s Outstanding Spring Wildflowers. Wildflowers are one of the best indicators of an intact forest ecosystem. When a forest is negatively impacted by human activity, its most telling indicators are: a) soil health, b) water quality, and c) plummeting understory biodiversity. All three indicators of a healthy forest receive high marks at Cliff Run Preserve. In fact, the preserve boasts one of the densest spring wildflower displays in a region already renowned for its wildflower displays, a region that includes the nearby Highlands Nature Sanctuary and Paint Creek Reservoir (see map above). Many of the signature plants found at Cliff Run Preserve are especially adapted to high-alkaline habitats, including hepatica, columbine, smooth cliff brake, miterwort, Sullivantia, and walking fern.
Cold Water Streams: The protected watershed of Cliff Run includes a stretch of Cliff Run proper, as well as its beautiful tributary known as Lewis Family Gorge. The striking beauty of the gorge’s vertical dolomite cliffs and the pavement-like level rock bottom were what inspired our pursuit of this land’s acquisition. Both the gorge and the beautiful ravine carved by Cliff Run support rich macroinvertebrates and cold-water adapted fauna, including the mottled sculpin.
Visitor Services at Cliff Run. Arc staff members, with the help of volunteers, have built two hiking trails at Cliff Run Preserve. Our Land Stewardship Team poured their artistry and creative skills into the preserve’s trail design. Concrete steps descend to the canyon floor, and staff members constructed a 280-foot-long floating bridge, giving hikers access to the small lake without interfering with the beavers who have remodeled the lake to their liking. The Arc’s Stewardship Team also built a gorgeous 45-foot footbridge spanning Cliff Run proper, supported by I-beams they repurposed from an abandoned trailer dismantled on the site.