Posted in Central Ohio, Geology, Park review

Rising Park: The View from Mount Pleasant

Posted on by Deb Platt

Lancaster, Ohio has a population just under 39,000, and it is the county seat of Fairfield County. It has a municipal park known as “Rising Park.” The park offers the normal sort of amenities that you might expect: a pond, picnic tables, playgrounds… things of that nature. But what’s unusual about the park is its terrain. Rising 250-foot (76 m) above the surrounding plain is a bluff known as “Mount Pleasant.” The bluff is made of highly erosion-resistant Blackhand sandstone. From the top of Mount Pleasant you have an exceptional view of the city and the forested hills at its outskirts.

The county fairgrounds have a permanent site in Lancaster which is the county seat. Here I am looking down at the horse race track that’s located on these fairgrounds.


A wooded hill to the side of the race track.
Looking up at Mount Pleasant from the fairgrounds.
This is a photo of me on Mount Pleasant. There is a black railing that keeps people a safe distance from the cliff’s edge. As you can see, it was really overcast when we were there.
The large green lawn is part of the school grounds of a public school. Since there is an adjoining playground, I assume it is an elementary school.
Zooming in toward the horizon, you can see a church (to the left) and a municipal center (to the right). The outlying hills are carpeted with forests.
Zooming in even closer to the horizon, there’s a glimpse of distant farms. In the foreground there is some sort of business, and to the far right edge there’s a factory or processing plant.
A look at some of the homes in the city.

We really enjoyed the view from atop Mount Pleasant. It would be fun to come back on a sunny day and see how the lighting changes the view. I can also imagine it would be fun to view the changing seasons from this vantage point.

It is not possible to drive to the top of Mount Pleasant. You have to park below and walk up. The kiosks where I am standing in the following photo mark the beginning of the ascent.

There is a walking path along the railing to the left.

As you walk up you’ll go by some rocky outcroppings in the interior.

Outcropping that you pass on your way up.
We saw these benches along the way, each made of a single, hewn stone in 1910. I wonder if horses had to pull them up here?

From the Wikipedia article about Lancaster I learned that experienced climbers have climbed up the sandstone cliffs a number of times. As far as I know they have done this without injury. However there have been cases of people falling from the top of the bluff, apparently from approaching the edge of the cliff too closely. Please stay on the safe side of the railings.

Additional information




Location

The address of Rising Park is 1100 N High St, Lancaster, Ohio. Take OH-22 through Lancaster, run left on OH-27. Just past the fairgrounds turn right into the Rising Park entrance. If you click “View Larger Map” below you can arrange for Google to give you directions from your location to Rising Park.


View Larger Map

More on Fairfield County

© Deborah Platt, Robert Platt and TrekOhio.com 2012 to 2021


Share the post "Rising Park: The View from Mount Pleasant"

Author:

2 thoughts on “Rising Park: The View from Mount Pleasant”

  1. This article was very well written! I could give explanation as to certain buildings that were alluded to in some of your excellent photos.

    Thank you so much for taking the time to share your valuable photos of our prized “Mt. Pleasant” once named “Standing Stone” by perhaps the Wyandot tribe of Native Americans residing in Lancaster before being officially founded/settled in 1800 by Ebeneezer Zane.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

You have to agree to the comment policy.

Complete the following sentence by typing either real or spam:
My comment is ...