Trails will be temporarily closed between Red Lock Trailhead and Brandywine Creek from Monday, March 3, to Friday, May 2, 2025 for installation of a new Brandywine Creek culvert. No detour is available.
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Our climate is changing now. In Northeast Ohio we expect to see continued rising temperatures, increased rainfall, and stronger storms in the years to come. Climate change affects how and when people can enjoy the park. It affects all living things that call this place home. As we adapt, Cuyahoga Valley National Park tries to balance protecting and supporting resilient ecosystems and cultural resources, while also ensuring people can safely access the park.
Climate change impacts vary widely and are felt beyond park boundaries. Some plants and animals are more affected than others. We will have to decide whether to resist, accept, or direct these impacts to park resources as we continue to learn more.
Cuyahoga Valley is a park for people. In a warmer, wetter future, we anticipate more days of unsafe heat for trail users or dangerous river conditions for paddlers. Beyond park boundaries, some local communities have less access to fresh air, shade, and places to play outdoors. Our region may see new arrivals from places that have experienced even more drastic climate change impacts. It will likely take extraordinary cooperation and adaptation to face these challenges together.
But there is hope. In Cuyahoga Valley’s recent history we find examples of people’s resilience and tenacity in overcoming other great challenges. And we continue to keep an eye to the future. Every year students, volunteers, and other community members help us restore park landscapes. We plant trees, we fight back invasive plants, we leave this place a little bit better than we found it. We hope future generations of people and wildlife will find refuge in the forests we plant today.
Below are stories of some of our successes. They remind us that we can face the current challenge of climate change as we have faced others in the past. They give us hope.
Northeast Ohio gets seven more inches of annual precipitation than it did in 1960, according to the US Army Corps of Engineers. This often falls as rain during storms that have become more frequent and more intense. Temperatures are warming too. Climate change affects all aspects of life in the valley, across America, and globally. Learn more about how Cuyahoga Valley and other national parks are responding with a Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) approach.
Sites:Inventory and Monitoring Division, Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate, Pacific Island Inventory & Monitoring Network, Capitol Reef National Park, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Glacier National Park, Haleakalā National Park, Indiana Dunes National Park, Rocky Mountain National Parkmore »
Click the link above to read some in-depth examples of national parks choosing to resist, accept, and direct change.
Sites:Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Grand Portage National Monument, Ice Age National Scenic Trail, Isle Royale National Park, Mississippi National River & Recreation Area, Saint Croix National Scenic Riverway, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshoremore »
The National Park Service (NPS) will strengthen forest resilience in Midwestern parks.
Once famous for being polluted and catching fire, the Cuyahoga River is making a comeback. Industries and cities discharge far fewer toxins into the river, and partners along the river, including Cuyahoga Valley National Park, are removing obsolete dams to improve oxygen levels and fish movement. People are enjoying the return of nesting bald eagles and other wildlife as well as new recreational opportunities along the Cuyahoga River Water Trail.
The Beaver Marsh is among the most diverse natural communities in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. But this wasn’t always the case. The area had been a farm and later a junkyard, which was cleaned up by a community effort. Explore the history of the marsh and learn why it remains an important ecosystem in the national park.
The Krejci Dump operated as a salvage yard and waste disposal facility from 1948 to 1980. At the time, dumps were largely unregulated. Toxic materials were buried in unlined pits and allowed to seep unchecked into the environment. Learn about the decades-long effort to investigate and clean up contamination at this site in Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
Bald eagle populations have been steadily increasing throughout the country in recent years. The Cuyahoga Valley, with expansive, secluded wooded wetlands and rebounding fish populations, has become an ideal place for eagles to feed and nest. In 2006, bald eagles returned and built a nest, the first recorded in the valley in modern times. Though unsuccessful that first year, the breeding eagles have returned in subsequent years and more than a dozen eaglets have fledged.
On their successful horse farm, Tress and Peggy Pittenger used conservation methods to care for the land. The national park and its partners and volunteers are carrying on this tradition by doing a major habitat restoration project along the Wetmore Trail.
In 2007, something remarkable happened in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. A young bald eagle took flight from its nest along the Cuyahoga River. It was the first successful nest ever recorded in Cuyahoga Valley. Cuyahoga Valley National Park is part of the ongoing story of renewal for the Cuyahoga River and the wildlife that depends on it.
