What Defines a "Hike"?

On July 21^st, a group of five of us headed to Eden Park set in the hills above downtown Cincinnati. This was one of those places that we asked ourselves, “Why did Tammy York include this location in a book about hiking?” We had a great time and we saw lots of cool things, but it was a paved walk around and about a city park. It really made me ponder, “What defines a 'hike'?” We “hiked” 3.37 miles in 1 hour and 23 minutes. The temperature was ­­a refreshing 73 degrees.

After parking the car near the Cincinnati Art Museum we headed down the hill on the sidewalk along the park road towards Mirror Lake. The day was so pretty with blue skies and big puffy white clouds. Just like the name implies, the reflections in the water of the sky above were so beautiful. I’m sure the pictures on this blog page are too small to even get an idea of how pretty the scenery was. We walked around Mirror Lake taking in the large fountain in the middle and stopping to watch a mama duck with her ducklings (they really looked like teenagers, they weren’t very small, but they were cute.) At one end of the lake was a huge gazebo and we went past it to Hinkle Floral Trail and the Krohn Conservatory.  (Hinkle Floral “Trail” is a sidewalk through a short span of woods.)

We didn’t stop to take time to visit the conservatory (we were on a hike, remember?), but we enjoyed all of the plants and flowers decorating the outside of the building. At the conservatory we crossed the street to a set of stairs that led up to the Presidential Grove where trees are planted in dedication to the U.S. Presidents. The big old trees were beautiful and the sidewalk wound its way to an old brick water tower that we walked around before heading down towards the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The memorial is a metal sculpture of two army soldiers. We only spent a couple of minutes here before we headed across the street again to another part of the park with a beautiful view overlooking the Ohio River. We stopped to take a break, listen to Lorrie’s questions and I tried to take pictures of everyone. Ryan and Morgan kept running away from the camera. There is a pond with lots of pretty landscaping and a bridge going over the water in this part of the park. Morgan and Ryan decided to do a little jogging, but were almost attacked by geese that were guarding one edge of the water.

This was the halfway point of the “hike”. We headed back toward the water tower, down the stairs, past Krohn Conservatory, and through the Hinkle Floral “Trail” (paved) to Mirror Lake again. This time Joe joined Ryan and Morgan and they ran together all the way around the lake (a much longer distance.) I was impressed and they had a good feeling of accomplishment. At this point the map led us along the sidewalks to a different park road and we took some steep steps back up toward the Art Museum and my car. This was the closest part of the outing that felt like a hike to me because we walked on dirt for about 10 feet. We ended the hike with one of our favorite sites of the day, a flying pig sculpture called "Shark Girl on Pig."

So, I want to put this question out to the readers. What defines a “hike”? Does this sound like a “hike” to you? Please help me think about this on my quest to becoming an experienced hiker.

I LOVE Eden Park! We had a great time. It was a beautiful day and there was so much to see.  This was “hike” number 38 – 22 hikes to go!!!!

Tick Magnet

I'm a little behind on my blogging and I was going to try to combine the last four hikes into one blog. After downloading the photos, I realized it just wouldn't be fair to the great places that I've been to recently. I wouldn't be able to paint a picture of the happenings and the surroundings of each hike. So, I really have my work cut out for me catching everyone up on these outstanding hikes.

On Monday July 8th, Cheryl, Morgan and I set out in the early evening to hike Winton Woods. Well, that really isn't the true story. We were heading out towards Oxford to hike two trails, but I got turned around on the highway and we made the spontaneous decision to hike Winton Woods when we inadvertently ended up on the exit off of the highway that takes you to this park. Although certain aspects of Winton Woods are more city like, there are some pretty wooded dirt trails that make for some great hiking.

After hiking along Winton Lake on the paved trail we reached the Kingfisher Trailhead. This trail is dirt, gravel and decking. We headed downhill to Winton Lake Creek. Because of the drought conditions the water was really low. It was still very beautiful along the creek because it was heavily wooded. Parts of the trail felt like you were hiking through a green leaf tunnel. Very cool! There were some ups and downs and twists and turns that provided us with a nice little workout. We passed a sinkhole (that I honestly wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for the sign.) The sign said that the sinkholes are created when the limestone beneath the surface of the soil is dissolved by acid bearing water. We finished up the Kingfisher Trail by hiking uphill and headed back to the trailhead.

There was one small portion of the hike left, so we headed across the park road to a small loop around a wetland restoration area. There were many layers of limestone rock they made a basin for the water. As we hiked around the loop, Cheryl was re-hashing her intimate experiences with the ticks from our hikes the previous week. I must admit, just the thought of it makes me start itching! She sprayed herself down heavily before we set off to hike to prevent a re-occurrence. Joe had previously shared with me that the ticks fall down out of the trees. So when she was hiking under the trees, I teased her to stay out from under to avoid her tiny little friends. We headed back to the car via the paved trail feeling we'd gotten some good exercise.

When I got home I received a picture of a tick that Cheryl found on her when she was undressing!  YIKES! Morgan and I didn't have any ticks on us. Cheryl now has a new nickname: Tick Magnet! Not really sure why they are attracted to her. Maybe they can tell that she has a big furry dog at home. Who knows?

This was hike number 37 - 23 more hikes to go!  I would definitely go back to this park. It's nice to know that it is only about a half an hour away and has a deep woods feel to it. Watch for another post very soon. It's catch up time!

Sweat at Sunrise

Independence Day celebrations started REALLY early for Joe, Cheryl and I as we set out to spend part of our day off conquering three hikes. Due to the extreme heat, I suggested starting our first hike at sunrise, so I picked Joe up at 4:30 in the morning. We met Cheryl about 15 minutes later and we were on our way to Adams County, Ohio. We hiked a total of 6.65 miles at Buzzardroost Rock, Adams Lake State Park and Chaparral Prairie State Nature Preserve. It was a truly sweaty and bug infested experience!

We started with the longest hike to Buzzardroost Rock. Finding the trail head was a little bit challenging causing us to start our hike about 15 minutes after sunrise officially started. The temperature was about 68 degrees. That sounds cool, but it was very muggy and it didn't take long for the sweat to break. The soil trail was curvy and rocky with lots of ups and downs. We got an amazing workout! We traveled 3.55 miles in two hours. The first thing that I noticed about this trail was that it was different than others we have hiked in the warm weather. Even though it was in the woods like the other hikes, we could really see the terrain - we weren't walking through a maze of green brush. It was truly beautiful, especially with the early morning light. This is an out and back hike and as we headed to the overlook (the halfway point) we were mostly hoofing it uphill. A recent storm dropped trees along the trail and we had some minor detours, but because there was not an abundance of ground cover, it was easy to keep track of where we were going. By the time we got to the overlook, we were all ready for a break and what a fantastic break it was! There was an awesome view of the valley below and a much appreciated breeze. We took several minutes to enjoy the view and study the next hiking location. Joe and Cheryl refueled with some protein bars, we all drank some water, and we headed back down the trail to the trail head. On the way back, we stopped to take several pictures of Buzzardroost Rock. It was so HUGE!!! How huge was it, you ask? It was so huge that there were full size trees growing out of it! We didn't have much farther to go to be back at the trail head, but it was a slow and steady climb back to the car and we were grateful when we got there. I would love to return to Buzzardroost to enjoy the views and to get a challenging workout.

We jumped in the car, cranked the A.C. and headed to Adams Lake State Park. The trail here was a big contrast to the first trail. Most of it was a paved surface along the lake. The morning sunlight on the water was pretty. There were a lot of geese on the water and some beautiful water plants. After hiking along the lake, we came to the kiosk marking a more traditional hiking trail. A good portion of this trail is prairie land and the trail was sunny. There were some neat plants that can endure the hot sun and dry weather and still maintain their green color. The coolest thing we saw on this trail were these incredible ant mounds. They were so GIGANTIC!!! How gigantic were they, you ask? They were so gigantic that some of them are more than 4 feet high and some are more than 20 years old! Next we followed a small loop that winds its way through the woods. The shade gave us a little relief from the hot sun. It was now around 78 degrees and more humid. After completing the loop we headed back along the lake and finished the 2.1 mile hike in about one hour.

At this point, it was about 9:45 in the morning and we decided that it might be good to get some food. Then we would have a short 1 mile hike left and we could head home. These hikes are in the West Union area, a very small country town. As we headed into town, we noticed that people were lined up all along Main Street - YIKES! We realized a Fourth of July parade was about to begin! Scratch the search for somewhere to eat, we didn't want to get stuck unable to get through the streets, so we headed to the trail instead. I am sure the locals were wondering who these outsiders were that were driving around in circles around their "city blocks." We smiled and did our best parade wave!

In about 10 minutes we arrived at Chaparral Prairie State Nature Preserve. Just like the name says, this was mostly prairie land. Now the temperature was 84 degrees. We saw a lot of the same plants that we saw at the other prairie trail. Joe was in the lead, as was true the whole day, and Cheryl and I were a little bit pokey - the tiredness from the other hikes were kicking in. Our feet were starting to hurt and our muscles were feeling sore. Cheryl stopped to admire some light green moss and I noticed she had some ticks on her.  After pulling several off of her, our speed suddenly picked up and we were practically running to catch up with Joe and get away from this tick infested trail. When we got to the car, we found a couple more on Cheryl and I pulled another one off of her in the bathroom at lunch. She found three more on herself when she got home. Needless to say, the two of us were itching and scratching for a couple of days with tick paranoia!

Despite the ticks, I can't think of a better way to spend a holiday than being out on the trail. 36 hikes down and 24 to go!!! The weather is continuing to be toasty, so I am thinking about an evening hike for this week.  I guess this is how I will have to roll in order to continue hiking in this crazy hot weather. If you like to sweat, join in!

Rocky Balboa Cheer

On Saturday, June 23, Joe, Morgan and I set out to do a couple of hikes at Shawnee Lookout. We hiked a total of 3.11 miles in about one hour and twenty-five minutes. When we started hiking it was 77 degrees and when we finished it was in the 80’s. This is a beautiful park. It sits up high between the Ohio and the Great Miami Rivers. The views were spectacular!

First, we hiked the Miami Fort Trail. It was mostly shaded and one of the first great views we had was of a valley. You could see huge fields with abundant green crops. Along the way there were a lot of signs about Native American life of the past in the area. There were also markings where different mounds existed. On our way into the park, we stopped at the park “museum.” It was a tiny room connected to the golf course clubhouse. There were some really cool artifacts that were uncovered by University of Cincinnati students back in the 70’s. As we kept climbing upward we soon reached other viewing areas where we got to enjoy some pretty views of the Ohio River, including one of the bridges that connects the states of Indiana and Ohio near Lawrenceburg.  The trail was well-cleared and had great ups and downs, so we felt like we got in some good exercise despite the fact that the trail was only about 1.3 miles long.

Next we hiked the Little Turtle Trail. This trail was not quite as hilly and was a little longer (1.81 miles.) The peaceful shady atmosphere was really pleasant. Right after we were commenting about how much easier this trail was than the other, we met up with a pretty sizable hill, one that really got our hearts pumping and our lungs puffing. At the top, Joe celebrated with his “Rocky Balboa Cheer.” Without saying any words the cheer says, “We did it!” The most exciting part of this day happened at the very end of the hike when we arrived back at the trail head. I was in the lead and Morgan was right behind me. I heard a sound at the ground to my left and then we both saw it – a black slithery snake! Joe didn’t get to see it because it took off into the woods so fast when it saw us, but Joe said it was probably a black rat snake. I googled a picture and that is certainly possible.  I love trail magic!!!!

It’s hard to believe that this is the end of 6 months of hiking. Thirty-three hikes later and I am still learning. Here are my insights for this month:

• A hike just isn’t a “hike” when the trail is paved.
• If  the title of the park has “wildlife area” or “nature preserve” in it, it’s likely that the trail will be rustic.  Be prepared.
• I hate deer flies!
• Temperatures can fluctuate a lot even in the summertime.
• Clif Bars are my new favorite hiking companion.
• Summer hiking can be like walking through a maze. All of the green leaves are pretty, but they block the beautiful landscape views.
• There's nothing like putting on a pair of flipflops after a long hot hike.

33 hikes down and 27 to go!!!! I have hiked a total of 110.16 miles so far this year. I will take a “Rocky Balboa Cheer” for that! Next blog post will be about a sunrise hike I’ll be taking on the Fourth of July. Anyone want to get out of bed while it’s still dark on your day off and join me?

Shenanigans at Sharon Woods

On Saturday, June 16, the family and our honorary member, Cheryl, headed to Sharon Woods for a hike. I think we all agreed that this felt more like a "walk" instead of a "hike." If one of you disagrees, it doesn't really matter, as Ryan pointed out during the hike, seeing as this blog is only written from my perspective. So, I have all the power! Hee-hee-hee! Although, there is a place for comments, of which I don’t seem to get very many. I am going to assume that means that I am always on the mark! Huh! Power again! Even though the trail was paved and the hike had a very public park atmosphere, we still had a fun time on this 80 degree day. We walked 4.53 miles in an hour and 50 minutes.

After crossing the bridge and stopping to look at a pretty waterfall, we took a few minutes to explore the Cummins Historic Cemetery. The graves were marked with tiny white marble headstones without any writing on them. The headstones popped out of a lush ivy-like groundcover. I did some internet researching to find out how old the cemetery is, but I didn’t have any luck. I guess the park office may have more info.

The path was one of those fitness trails where it has pit stops to do a variety of exercises as you walk. This is where the shenanigans come in. At one stop, there were some parallel bars. You had to hoist your body weight off of the ground and move across them using your arm strength. Cheryl was interested in trying them, so she gave it a whirl and only hoisted herself off of the ground. She didn’t know how to get herself moving. Then, Ryan showed her how it was done. You can tell by the pictures he really knew what he was doing! Cheryl took a second try and moved a little bit, but I think because she was laughing, she didn’t get far. A big pat on the back to Cheryl and Ryan – none of the rest of us even tried!

After hiking through some wonderful shaded areas, we reached Sharon Lake. There were some pretty views. Lots of people were at the park. There were boats on the lake, including people in paddle boats. We walked around the lake and went through a cool tunnel to travel underneath the road. It was constructed as part of a stone bridge and was a pretty spot on the lake. The trail curved around the lake and passed through two big tunnels to go under the highway. These were really loud with passing cars.

This is a very nice park for the local community. If I lived nearby, I would walk it all the time for exercise. Although, it didn’t satisfy my appetite for a deep woods peaceful hike, the company was stupendous.  Thanks to Ryan, Morgan, Cheryl, and Joe for keeping me company. I’m so grateful for it!

32 hikes down and 28 to go!!!!

I will blog again soon about a couple of hikes we took at Shawnee Lookout. Not sure about hiking this weekend as the weatherman is forecasting temperatures in the hundreds…missing winter hiking!

Abundance

One thing that I have learned about the different places that we have hiked is that when the name of our destination has the words "wildlife area" in it, you are pretty much guaranteed a pretty rustic trail. This epiphany came to me during last weekend's hikes because we hiked at two extremely different places in one day. Lorrie, Joe and I started the day hiking 1.51 miles at Caesar Creek Gorge State Nature Preserve. It was a cool 66 degrees - unexpected for June. Caesar Creek Gorge was beautiful. The trails were well manicured, easy to follow and had fancy bridges and steps built all over the place. It was just on the other side of the dam at Caesar's Creek State Park where we hiked a few weeks ago. This was a welcome retreat after the mishaps on unmarked trails the last couple of hikes. Even though this was a short hike, I would return to this spot because there are so many other trails nearby that would make for a great day of hiking.

We got back in the car and drove about 15 minutes to Spring Valley Wildlife Area, and "wildlife area" it was!  The trail was nice and flat and easy to follow, but pretty rustic at times. Although it was rustic the word that foremost comes to my mind when thinking of Spring Valley is "abundance." What is the most plentiful thing that you have ever seen? A crowd in a stadium? A forest full of trees from an airplane? Blades of grass in a lawn? Multiply that vision times ten and that was what looking at Spring Valley Lake was like. To give you an idea of the size of the lake's area: the trail is about 2.75 miles around the lake . There is an abundance of lily pads that is truly unbelievable covering the entire surface of the lake, side by side and on top of each other, they were everywhere! We hiked about 2.36 miles in about an hour and 15 minutes and the temperature had risen to about 75 degrees.

There was an abundance of many other living things as well. The cattails were so thick along the boardwalk to the observation deck that you couldn't see any water. Birds are also in abundance at Spring Valley. The sign along the trail said that more than 230 birds have been recorded there. One type of bird that is most plentiful here are geese, so there was quite an abundance of goose poop. My least favorite thing at Spring Valley Lake was the abundance of bugs!  Even though we had previously sprayed ourselves, we stopped to spray again at one point because they were relentless!  Particularly annoying were the deer flies who seem to purposely fly from one ear to the other even though I was continuously moving and swatting at them. I hate those deer flies!  I would love to go back to Spring Valley when all of those lily pads are blooming. I bet it is an amazing site. There were only a few blooms here and there when we were hiking and I wondered what it would look like with all of them in bloom.

After Caesar Creek Gorge and Spring Valley...31 hikes down and 29 hikes to go. Past the halfway mark!!!!!!!  This is starting to feel achievable!

This past weekend we hiked at Sharon Woods, so I will be blogging again soon in order to catch up!

Identity Crisis

Joe and I tackled the longest hike so far over the weekend to Mounds State Recreation Area in Whitcomb, Indiana. We hiked 9.14 miles  in 5 hours and 8 minutes and the weather was amazing. I guess my post title from last week was a little premature. It sure felt like July last week and this week it was absolutely beautiful! The temperature was 62 degrees when we started and only went up to 73 degrees by the end of the hike. It was really breezy and partly cloudy. The absolute perfect day for a hike!

We started on the Wildlife Wander Trail. This trail was the easiest part of the hike. The surface was soil and it was very well cleared. There was no guesswork involved about where to go. It was a great start and I had a good feeling that it was going to be a great hike. The number of miles ahead of us was looming, but because the weather was so pretty and we were well-stocked with protein bars, I was ready to take it on! There were a bunch of shagbark hickory trees on this part of the trail. The only tree that I can really easily identify because it actually looks exactly like its name. The end of this trail was at a creek crossing that was unlike any I had seen before - large concrete pillars across the creek. We crossed one of the park roads and headed to the Templeton Creek Trailhead.
 
The Templeton Creek Trail surface changed drastically compared to the Wildlife Wander Trail. What was not so perfect was it's unpredictability. It had a serious identity crisis! The trail surface changed more often than a traffic light changes colors (that might be a slight exaggeration...)  Thankfully we had asked for a map when we paid our entrance fee into the park, so we were able to keep our bearings to some degree. Some of the trail was soil, some of it was mowed, and some of it was completely covered over with weeds and was almost impossible to follow.  The funny thing was we would only be hiking a couple of minutes on one surface and then it would change again. It was pretty frustrating at times considering the trails did not have many signs or markers of any other kind.

We persevered and finally reached a clearing where there were several trail signs.  I reached into my pocket for the trail map to identify where we were on the map and it was gone. It had fallen out of my pocket when we were trying to negotiate the trail. Yikes! We had only traveled around 2 miles at this point, so we still had a long way to go. Although Joe and I were grateful for the nice park map (easy portability compared to the book), when we left the car I made a last minute decision to put the 60 Hikes book in my pack - this was a very good thing. We sat down in the grass, got the book out and were able to figure out exactly where we were.  Realizing we were just a short walk from a picnic area, we picked up and headed down to it to study the book and its map and to eat our lunch.

Rested and feeling familiar with where we were headed, we set off for the Long Loop and Short Loop Trails as well as the Glidewell Indian Mounds. As we traveled along the soil trail, the weeds got taller and taller until they were taller than us. We were excited to get to the mounds, but it was very anticlimactic as we would not have known we were looking at them except there was a sign nearby. Crazy grassy weeds were all over the place and it was hard to get a sense of exactly where the mounds started and ended. We continued on this trail and started to see lake views of Brookville Lake. Since the temperature was so nice and we had plenty of water and protein bars, we decided to go with the Long Loop Trail instead of the Short Loop Trail. This was both good and bad. What was great about it was that the trail eventually wound its way all the way down to the lake and we were hiking on a trail along the shore. It was beautiful. The not so great part about it was that we eventually hit a spot in the trail where the weeds were so thick and so tall there was absolutely no way to tell where the trail was anymore and there was no where to step. Sadly, we had to turn around. It was a long haul back because we had almost completed the Long Loop, however, because hiking along the lake was by far the prettiest part of this hike, the unfortunate mishap turned out in our favor.

At this point, we were pretty sick of the weeds and the unmarked trails. We decided to hike along the road and then pick up the Wildlife Wander Trail from there to get back to the car. This was a nice change of pace for us. We had now traveled a little over 7 miles and our feet were starting to hurt.  We hiked about two more miles and were glad to reach the car.  Joe and I both said that we weren't sure if we would hike these trails again. Had they been cleared, it would be a definite yes for me, but the distance we had to drive and the aggravation of the overly bushy trails causes me to give these trails a thumbs down at this time.

29 hikes down and 31 to go!!!! About to hit the half-way point and I am really excited about that!!!!  Two hikes this weekend: Ceasar Creek Gorge and Spring Valley Wildlife Area. Both hikes are easy, so if you've been thinking about stepping out with us, this might be the weekend for you!!! Send me a message and join in.