For many people, the separation of shutdowns and social distancing surely made them crave connection and community. For whatever reason, I also found consolation in isolation. Something about getting out into nature helped me find the gratitude I needed to get me through the trying times. Plus, I really didn't want to gain the weight I knew the pandemic must be packing on. So we made a decision, as part of making a concerted effort to be as active as possible, to walk or hike at least once every weekend throughout fall.
We kicked off this grand effort with a camping trip to Burr Oak State Park. We orchestrated a complicated route in which we hiked almost 6 miles around the lake to a marina where we had previously docked a canoe. Then we rowed back across the lake to the beach near the campground. The exertion, combined with the humidity, sapped us so much that we barely had the energy to make our planned campfire dinner.
So as we continued our weekend series, we opted to for some more pedestrian places, shorter hikes we had accomplished before and felt confident we could conquer again. We walked up to the overlook at Rising Park then wandered around the pond at the foot of the outcropping (top left). Then there was a 2-mile loop in the hills of Strouds Run State Park, ending at the lake (top right). The trail at Rock House in Hocking Hills State Park is way less than 2 miles (middle left), but a lot of the distance involves steps down from and up to the ceiling of the caves (middle right). Still, we felt like had enough elevation experience that we could stop on the way home to climb up to Rhododendron Cove (bottom).
Neither of us had been to the plant-eponymous trail before, even though we had passed within yards of it on the highway multiple times. It was a delightful-to-discover surprise that got us interested in other state preserves that might be hidden gems. And indeed, Christmas Rocks felt like opening a gift under the tree on a holiday morning. The initial walk along a creek was a well-wrapped introduction (top left) to the present at the end, a view so expansive it seemed to be somewhere other than Ohio (top right). Lake Katharine also transported me to another state, upstate New York perhaps, and state of mind (bottom left). The mirror lake felt more akin to the Adirondacks than the Appalachians (bottom right).
With the weather cooling down, we decided to combine camping and state preserves, so we reserved a site at John Bryan State Park (top). From the campground are multiple trails leading to Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve. Luckily, repairs had been completed on a bridge across the Little Miami River, so we were able to complete a loop using the South Gorge and North Rim trails (bottom left). Along the way, we saw many examples of limestone grooves turned into hardwood groves, a terrain the area is known for (bottom right).
The state park is just a short ways from Yellow Springs, a liberal hippie town known for its progressive activism (top left), which has been in evidence since educational reformer Horace Mann became the first president of Antioch College there. Indeed, the tagline of the town's first microbrewery, Yellow Springs Brewery, is "crafting truth to power" (top right). The taproom sits along the Little Miami Scenic Bike Trail. Although it might seem so, the trail is not the namesake for Ye Olde Trail Tavern, which opened for business in 1827, well before bicyclists were the travelers stopping for drinks (bottom left). For our part, not only did we sip a pint there, but we also hydrated during an out-and-back bike ride to Xenia at Devil Wind Brewery, which is named after the tornado that has shaped the city's past and present (bottom right).
Clifton Gorge is in west-central Ohio. In southeast Ohio, instead you have hollows, with somewhat shallower waterways, wider riverbeds, and less sheer cliffs. But from what I could tell while walking the short loop at Wildcat Hollow (top left), the differences are mostly semantic. By forgoing the long loop, we never really got down into the hollow itself, but it seemed deep enough from the top of the tree line (top right). At Boch Hollow, the routes from the west trailhead -- not far from the permit area to visit Robinson Falls (middle left) -- involve plenty of elevation. So much so that, when we stopped for a snack, it felt good to put my boots up (middle right). After a climb out of the valley, we passed through a dormant field on the way back to the parking lot. The mottled clouds in the sky and the snow patches on the ground made it clear that our trek through autumn had ended and we were headed toward winter (bottom).
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BUCHANAN, CHARLES L. “J. FRANCIS MURPHY A POET PAINTER.” Arts & Decoration (1910-1918), vol. 3, no. 6, 1913, pp. 191–193. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43805824. Accessed 21 June 2021.
