If ever there were an all-purpose park, southwestern Pennsylvania’s Ohiopyle State Park would be it. Looking for waterfalls? It has four, which seems as if it must have inspired Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house, just five miles away. Trails? Hikers get 79 miles of them — plus 27 miles for cyclists, 11 for folks on horseback, and nearly 40 for cross-country skiers. And why not throw in a natural water slide or two? The lifeblood of the 20,000-acre park, however, is the Youghiogheny River Gorge — a.k.a. the Yough. The Middle Yough, which flows to Ohiopyle from Confluence, Pa., is the gentler section, with Class I and II rapids for rafters and kayakers; the Lower Yough downstream gets up to Class IV whitewater. Combined, they attract a good chunk of the one million people who visit the park every year.
