by Jennie Vasarhelyi, Chief of interpretation, education and visitor services, Cuyahoga Valley National Park

In a recent survey, visitors to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park identified Brandywine Falls as one of the most satisfying locations in the park.

Located in Sagamore Hills, this major park destination is also essentially in your backyard. Nearby red maple trees flame in color in October, making this a good month to become reacquainted with the falls.

The 60-foot waterfall is the centerpiece of the falls area, but not its only attraction. Carved by Brandywine Creek, the falls demonstrates classic waterfall geology. A harder rock layer caps the waterfall, protecting softer layers of rock below.

In this case, the top layer is Berea sandstone. The softer layers include Bedford and Cleveland shales, formed from mud found on a sea floor that covered this area 350 to 400 million years ago. Shale is thinly chunked, giving the water a bridal veil appearance as it cascades down the falls.

A combination of boardwalk and steps brings you into the waterfall's gorge and lets you view the waterfall head-on. The boardwalk also provides a close look at Berea sandstone. Careful inspection will reveal the individual grains of sand that accumulated in a sea that covered this area 320 million years ago. Berea sandstone is high quality sandstone found commonly throughout this area, both in nature and as a construction material used in buildings and canal locks.

The gorge's moist atmosphere is evident as you walk along boardwalk. It invites moss to grow on the sandstone and eastern hemlock, an evergreen tree, to fill the woods along the gorge. The hemlocks contrast with the colorful red maple trees in the fall.

Brandywine Falls also has a human history. The early settlers in the valley saw the falls not just as an object of beauty, but as something to be used for water power. In 1814, George Wallace built a sawmill at the top of the falls. Grist and woolen mills followed. The Village of Brandywine grew around the mills and became one of the earliest communities in the Cuyahoga Valley.

Much of the village is now mostly gone, lost to the construction of Interstate 271. However, the James Wallace house, built by George's son, remains and is a bed and breakfast, the Inn at Brandywine Falls.

If you want to explore beyond the waterfall, you can take the 1.5-mile Gorge Trail. It starts near the bed and breakfast and follows the edge of the gorge, eventually taking you down to creek level.

The trail is worth revisiting in the spring to view vernal pools -- which temporarily fill with water in the spring and attract breeding salamanders.

The views of the creek and the layers of rock it has exposed are also worth the walk. When the water levels in the creek are low enough, sandstone rocks form stepping stones.

The trail then continues on the other side of the creek back to the top of the falls. When water levels are high, the creek crossing becomes impassible, although the park plans to soon build a bridge to prevent this problem.

Brandywine Falls is a place to watch the moods of the waterfall. With less water, the bridal-veil pattern becomes more pronounced. In winter, ice becomes the attraction.

Immediately after storms, water torrents over the falls, often in higher volumes than would have occurred historically, because run-off from upstream paved surfaces has increased water flow.

So why visit Brandywine Falls? The reasons are as numerous as the stories associated with the place. For you, the answer may be to soak in its beauty; to feel the awe of water power which carved the gorge and powered the mills; or to wonder at the details of nature found in the individual needles of hemlocks and the pure grains in the sandstone.

The Brandywine Falls area is open daily from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Wayside exhibits illustrate the geology and human history of the area.

Brandywine Falls is on Brandywine Road south of Highland Road by the I-271 overpass.

For more information about trails in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, call 216-524-1497 or visit www.nps.gov/cuva.