Glen Helen Nature Preserve, Yellow Springs, Ohio

Located in Yellow Springs, Ohio right next to Antioch College. According to "50 Hikes In Ohio" by Ralph Ramey this nature preserve is one of "Ohio's best kept secrets". We hiked on Sunday, March, 16th. Glen Helen is an absolutely beautiful trail, well maintained, obviously well-traveled, but clean - we saw almost no garbage on the trail. http://www.antioch-college.edu/glenhelen/

The trail head is 23 miles from I70 & I75 intersection. About 88 miles from our home - worth the drive!! Map to 505 Corry Street, Yellow Springs Ohio and bring 2 - dollar bills for parking. It's an honor system and you have to have exact change.

We started the trail behind the museum and found beautiful stone steps. We headed to the stream and stayed on the trail that kept us close to it the whole time, we figure about 3 miles. There are beautiful falls and cascades.

There are really cool rock formations all over this hike, they are layered (I'm no geologist) but they look like big legos put together. And since we don't have spring quite yet - the moss really stood out in round, furry, green clumps, and looked almost magical. There were no leprechaun sitings here, but I half expected one!

Our hike took us 2 1/2 hours, but with 26 miles of foot trails, a day could easily be spent exploring this beautiful area. The hike was easy, not a lot of elevation changes.

After hiking, we made our way into town and found "Ye Olde Trail Tavern" http://yeoldetrailtavern.com/about_us.htm believed to be the second oldest tavern in Ohio. Yellow Springs is a nice town with a lot of interesting shops and deserves a visit on it's own merit!

Withrow Nature Preserve

Yesterday - The Blizzard of '08 - today a beautiful sunny day perfect for a walk in the woods.

So back to Withrow Nature Preserve, 0.9 miles from 5 mile road and I275 (exit 69)

There are several trail heads from the parking lot. Standing facing the house from the parking lot, there is a trail head behind the house at about 12 O'Clock. There is one at about 9 O'Clock and there is one at about 6 O'Clock (next to the port-o-potties).

We chose to enter at 9 O'Clock today, on entering there is a fork which goes over the bridge to the left which we took. Following this around, you pass the 6 O'Clock trail head on the left leading back to the parking lot. Soon you will come to another fork. To the left takes you to the field and to the right takes you to the Ohio River Overlook. It loops around through the woods, out to the field and right back to this spot.

Here is the view from the field:

We logged 4472 steps on the pedometer in about 50 minutes. We estimate this to be about 2 miles. The pedometer is a very rough estimate in hiking, our steps were smaller today because of the snow.

East Fork State Park

We hiked a couple of miles at Eastfork Lake yesterday. It was a beautiful day (3-2-08) even though it misted on us during our hike, it was 52 degrees. The first time hiking in a long while without my cuddleduds!

We drove in Ohio Pike 125 and took a left on 222 then a right on Slade Road. I've never been in this entrance and it was cool because it takes you over the dam.

We started at the Visitor's Center where a very nice Army Corp employee let us in and gave us some maps and pointed us in the direction of Deer Trail to start. It's a half mile loop just across from the parking lot of the Vistor's Center. We were looking for more of a hike, but figured we'd start there. The hiking maps are not detailed at all, and we had no idea where we were going.

Deer Trail is a nice little loop. The trails are wide and well mulched. The trail name held true and we saw three deer. They were in camo though, so we couldn't get a great picture.

While on this trail, we met a guy out with his dogs who pointed us to another trail. Coming out of Deer Trail, with the Visitor's Center directly across the street, we took a left on the road and walked about a half mile up. On the right was another Dam and on the left a large well maintained field. At the end of the road is a cul-de-sac for cars to turn around. On the left is a white gate marking the trail head. Immediately at the trail head there is a left fork and a right fork. We took the right fork which turned out to be wrong. We ended up at a road. But it still was a nice hike.

We turned around when we hit the road and came back to the original left fork and found the trail the guy directed us to. It was a very muddy trail!! So if you go make sure to where your boots and bring an extra pair of shoes to wear home. This is a good hiking practice anyway. Even if your boots stay clean on the outside, if you are moving they are probably getting sweaty on the inside.

Well, back to the trail! It took us along a pretty nice ridge top and then to the bottom of the large clearing that I referred to earlier that could be seen from the road. Then we followed a couple of switchbacks and ended up at the Little Miami River where it flows out of the Dam. It moves pretty fast. Facing the river, the trail to the right is marked for the American Discovery Trail: http://www.discoverytrail.org/ and the Ohio Buckeye Trail: http://www.buckeyetrail.org/

We went to the left and headed back to the clearing and made our way back to the road and the Visitor's Center. There are 2,160 Acres in this State Park - a lot of ground to explore. There are 10 named trails that are anywhere from 1/2 mile to the Steve Newman Worldwalker Perimeter Trail which is 31.5 miles. For us, this trail is very close to home so we'll be back to explore!

Red River Gorge

A beautiful fall day (10/21/07) at the Red River Gorge in the Daniel Boone National Forest. This day we hiked about 7 miles on 220, 221 & 226 loop from Koomer Ridge Campground.

The best book we have found for hiking in Red River Gorge is "Kentucky's Land of the Arches" by R. H. Ruchhoft - but it's out of print! Used copies can be found on Amazon.

Chimney Tops Trail - Great Smoky Mountains

This is the view from the top of Chimney Tops in the Smokies taken on December 27, 2007. This trail is beautiful from bottom to top! Lots of bridges over rocky streams towards the bottom, the streams get narrow closer to the top.

Here's a link to the trail description:

http://www.gsmnp.com/pages/chimney_tops.html

Withrow Nature Preserve

Here is the view of the Ohio River from the scenic overlook at Withrow Nature Preserve taken on Sunday, February 24, 2008

http://www.hamiltoncountyparks.org/parks/withrow.htm