Park Features
At Clifty Falls, you’ll find a wide variety of activities to keep the whole family busy. There's a pool and water slide, campground, nature center, and the beautiful Clifty Inn. The inn has rooms and suites, some with beautiful overlooks of the river. There's an indoor swimming pool and hot tub, sun porch, game room, bonfire pit, and plenty of space for events. You can even get married on the riverfront patio!
The park also has a variety of hiking trails that provide a range of difficulties. You can take on the Four Falls Challenge, a four-mile hike past the waterfalls and other notable areas of the park. For those who aren’t up for rugged hiking, part of Trail 7 has an ADA-accessible view of one of the waterfalls. At Lookout Point, you’ll find parking access along with colorblind viewers which were paid for by a grant from the Friends of Clifty Falls volunteer group.
The Four Falls Challenge
The Four Falls Challenge was more rugged than I expected, so I feel like I earned my challenge sticker for finishing it! I started near Hoffman Falls on Trail 4 and then caught Trail 5. The first part was the most difficult and slow going, but I eventually made my way to Brough's Tunnel. Be aware that Brough’s Tunnel is still closed after a rock slide last year.
As for the waterfalls, the best time to see them is in the spring or after days of heavy rain. These are also not falls to play in due to their extreme height of 60 to 83 feet! I’d imagine seeing icicles hanging from them in the winter is very dramatic! In addition to the waterfalls, the challenge also takes you down a ladder, along limestone cliffs, and out to Cake Rock. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a massive rock that looks like a slice of cake!
Bats!
Another fascinating part of Clifty Falls is that it's home to Indiana's most bug-hungry mammal: bats. Since they're nocturnal, bats are often surrounded by myth and mystery, so I talked with DNR state mammologist Brad Westrich about them. He shared why it matters to have a variety of animals represented in the state. He said, “A lot of these species are indicators of healthy habitats and healthy ecosystems. So, you know, even though they're rare and maybe they're the base of the food chain, that could be their role… If the habitat isn't healthy, then you're not going to have those species there.”
Bats are one of the species that are an important part of Indiana habitats because in the summer, they can eat hundreds or even thousands of bugs in an hour! There are 10 species of bats in the state, but the ones at Clifty Falls are big brown bats, and they spend their winter hibernating in Brough’s Cave.
Even if there wasn’t a massive boulder in front of the cave, it would be closed in the winter. Brad explained, “Disturbance of bats in the winter is probably the number one cause of them putting themselves at risk and potentially leading to death.” The reason for that is “when they go into hibernation, it's not like they're conking out and then waking up five months later. They actually go to sleep and get into that state of hibernation where their heart rate and their respiratory rate has dropped down to like base level and their body temperature is almost ambient temperature around them. But they do wake up every couple of weeks.”
The fat reserve bats put on in the fall allows them to wake up and move mid-winter before resettling to continue hibernation. However, if humans disturb them, “they're forced to wake up more often than they naturally would. They burn through those fat reserves more quickly and then they might be forced due to hunger and other reasons out into the environment before insects are out there because it's still the middle of winter.” If bats fully come out of hibernation too soon, they’ll likely starve to death.
Keeping them protected and thriving is a massive help for hikers and farmers because of all the bugs they eat, so having bats in your area is truly a benefit. In the episode, Brad also dispels other bat myths (they’re not blind) and gives tips on how to encourage bats to live in your area.
The Friends of Clifty Falls
Nearly every state park has a set of volunteers called the Friends group. These hard-working members love their park and want to support it in any way. At Clifty Falls, this often includes a focus on removing invasive plants. Invasives are tricky to eliminate because sometimes they look pretty or appear very similar to native plants. Homeowners unknowingly plant them, and before you know it, they’ve taken over all the native plants. They can also be poisonous to birds and animals.
The Friends of Clifty Falls have worked with others from Madison to remove invasives and provide education on how to avoid them completely. One of their members, Cathy Cleveland, shared a success story with me. She said, “In the past year, we've applied for several grants and have been successful. And one of them was through the Community Foundation of Madison and Jefferson County for invasive removal. We were able to cover about a 10-acre piece of the property… It might not be huge, but it was some of the more heavily infected areas.” The large-scale invasive removals are the best option in fighting them off and much more efficient than digging them up by hand.
Thankfully, the Friends also take on less physically demanding projects by helping in the nature center. They worked with the local library to develop a story walk for young kids. They also partnered with the local high school and Hanover College on other projects. Much of their work is with grant writing, which is how the park was able to purchase the colorblind viewers. The desire to lend a helping hand is a defining quality for the Friends group. Most of the members simply want to be good neighbors and encourage stewardship of the park they love!
Planning Your Visit
Clifty Falls is a park you can enjoy on repeat visits. I'm excited to go back again and hike the trails I didn't get to before – maybe see the waterfalls after a hard rain! I’d recommend taking a full weekend to appreciate the park, then explore downtown Madison before staying overnight at Clifty Inn. It's a special place and loved deeply by the community and beyond.
Follow and Share
Want to join my IN the Parks journey? Check out the podcast, follow along on Instagram and Facebook, and be sure to share with a friend. Now, get out and make some of your own memories, and I hope to see you IN the Parks!
