Season 2 (Spring) Episode 12 (Clifty Falls)

On Today’s episode of Adventures with Gary The Wood Sprite: Season 2, (Spring) episode 12 (Clifty Falls). It’s May 25, 2026. We started the Nature Center parking lot at Clifty Falls State Park in Madison, IN. From there we took the Number 1 trail. This was my very first-time at an observation tower! Yay!

Back to Indiana! My very first adventure was in Indiana and I had to come back. I just love this place especially because when you live within the circle of Ohio you tend to forget that whole other states exist. And with the price of gas, it’s nice to go on an adventure in a whole other state in less than 3 hours.

How did Clifty Falls get its name? Well, there’s cliffs and (wait for it) falls! Woah.

We chose a “rugged” trail which was not the hardest but we also wanted a challenge. We knew that if we did a lot of uphill hiking there may be a great view involved. The observation tower gave a great view of the Ohio River. Glorious.

The nice thing about this park are the placards of maps at the trail intersections. My lovely human guide also used her app called All Trails and even with those two resources we took a wrong turn and didn’t get to see a large waterfall, only a few small ones. That’s ok because we will for sure be going back.

The lesson for this adventure is this: Read the map very carefully FIRST. Especially if it’s a large park with lots of cool things to see. What I should have done was ask an employee or google the best and easiest way to see one of the waterfalls. Duh.

As far as trash goes there were only a few pieces of food wrappers, not even the whole wrapper. This is impressive for this size of park!

There were two flowers of interest including the before seen spiderwort (S2E6) and the never-before-seen wild petunia (light purple/pink).

The fungi include some kind of pluteus, turkey tails, a white one that looked like lions’ mane but I think it might be coral tooth, not sure. Also, we found a clear jelly fungus called a crystal brain fungus aka witches butter.

There are three new insects. There is one picture that looks like a bee or a wasp. Its not! It’s a hoverfly. It doesn’t bite or sting. They are exceptionally good to have around. They act as vital pollinators for flowers and crops. Their larvae act as natural pest control by eating harmful insects like aphids.

We also saw a Kentucky flat millipede aka a cherry millipede. They get their name from their flat, armored bodies and the cherry/almond-scented cyanide compounds they secrete when frightened. The good news is she didn’t even notice us.

See the picture of the foamy mass attached to a plant stem? That is a nest made by spittlebug nymphs. The nymphs feed exclusively on the watery xylem sap of various vascular plants. Because this sap is nutrient-poor, they must consume large quantities, processing the excess fluid to create their signature protective foam. It protects them from predators and from drying out. Froghoppers are the adults. They earn this name because they resemble tiny frogs and can leap incredible distances (up to 100 times their body length).

There were several cute bridges. However, careful, sometimes the wood gets wet and very slippery.

Other items of note: baby tooth moss, frog eggs traveling down a steep rocky trail via water runoff from a recent rain. a racoon print. a beautiful stream with a riffle (A riffle is a shallow, fast-moving section of a stream where water flows over coarse materials like gravel, rocks, and boulders. It keeps the water oxygenated)

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Are you good at reading maps? Are you good at orienteering? If someone says go North or South or East or West, do you glaze over and get mad like I do?