Mid-Autumn

Now we've moved into November, and in northeast Ohio the bright reds and yellows of October have faded to the russet and pale yellow of late fall.  Temperatures are starting to get lower at night, and the hours of daylight are shrinking.  This past weekend Daylight Savings Time switched over, so now the sun sets at 5:30 - just when I'm getting home from work.

The frenzy of early autumn outdoors activity is dying down for the most part.  People are packing away their summer toys and clothes, getting ready for spending the next few months indoors as much as possible.  There are no cars at the campgrounds, trails are becoming less crowded, and there's almost no one out paddling the creeks and rivers.  The wheel of the seasons rolls around again, and people hunker down to wait for the sun again.  Almost time for me to unpack the cold weather gear and resign myself to cold fingers and toes.

There have been quite a few rail trail miles for me since my last entry in late September.  I've continued to put in a bunch of miles on the Western Reserve Greenway Trail, the local rail trail that's only 5 miles from my house.  This is my default ride when I want to get in some miles and don't have the time to travel elsewhere.  It's a nice trail, with over 15 miles north of town in our county, which then continues on in the next county north nearly to the shore of Lake Erie.  The WRGT is just about the straightest, flattest rail trail around, as the railroad bed that it was built on traveled parallel to the river, instead of crossing over several drainages, and climbing in and of a bunch of creek valleys.  Some riders say that the it's boring to ride, because of the lack of variety in the terrain.  But there's plenty to see, if you keep your eyes open.

The Rock Creek bridge and observation deck.

Looking down from the bridge at the bedrock of Rock Creek.

There were three events on WRGT in the last 6 weeks or so.  The first was the First Annual Bike Ride with the County Commissioners.  One of the three commissioners showed up to ride, and a group of 15 or so bicyclists made the short 7 mile ride.

Ride with the County Commissioners on WRGT.

Then last weekend there were two separate dedication ceremonies.  The bike trail through town, as well as the county parks bike trail both recognized a local cyclist, Garrett Wonders, who was killed by a motorist while training for the Olympic cycling team several years ago.  Both ceremonies were well attended, despite the chilly fall weather.

The Warren Bike Trail is now the Garrett Wonders Bike Trail.

My Friday after work rides on the Little Beaver Creek Greenway have continued.  This trail is 45 minutes south of me, but it's the only local rail trail that allows night riding, so it's become my go-to Friday ride. Usually I ride the 20 mile round trip of the main section of trail end to end, a beautiful ride through rural farm country and Beaver Creek's stream valley.  However I did have an incident on the trail a couple of weeks ago that was less than pleasant.

I was riding along in the dark with my lights on, somewhere around midway, when an animal ran out in front of me.  It came down the steep hillside on my left and tried to cross the trail, but was stopped by the fence to the right.  It did an abrupt about face and bounded back up the grade.  It was only like 10 feet in front of me, and startled me enough that I rode off the edge of the trail and dumped the bike at about 15 mph.  It's been a while since I've crashed on pavement, and I've got to say that I don't miss it. Several bruises, more damage to my already screwed up left knee, and road rash that is still healing.  As for the animal, I originally thought it might have been a grey fox, but after looking at a couple of pictures I think it was probably a coyote (or maybe a chupacabra).  No real damage, but it's a good thing I had my helmet on, because my head bounced off that asphalt like it was a super ball.

I also headed a bit west and rode a section of trail new to me.  I've ridden on the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail before, up near Peninsula, but never had been on the southern end, down between Massillon and Bolivar.  This trail isn't built on an old rail bed, rather it's on the road used by mules to haul boats up and down the Ohio and Erie Canal.  It was a gorgeous fall ride with only a few other trail users to be seen in over 25 miles.

The O&E Canal Towpath Trail on the banks of Tuscarawas River.

With mostly dry weather continuing I've managed to get in a bunch of mountain bike rides in the last 6 weeks.  Several times I've managed to get after work rides out at West Branch State Park (the local trails) including a couple of great night rides.  I also got in rides at North Road Nature Preserve here in town, and at Bavington in Pennsylvania.  And just this weekend I got my fastest lap of the year at Quail Hollow State Park (that would be 23 minutes flat, including time to stop for a dropped chain).

The town trails at North Road Nature Preserve after raking.

West Branch SP trails with heavy leaf cover.

Sunset from the West Branch trails from a night ride.

My brother during a rest break at Bavington.

Some of the Bavington trails are overgrown with multiflora rose (my nemesis).

I even had a chance for a little overnight adventure a couple of weeks ago.  My wife was heading down to Columbus to visit her sister for the weekend, and the boy was off backpacking with the Scouts.  That left me with no adult supervision for the weekend, so I decided to pack the bikes and some camping equipment and head out.  I started with a night ride on the Sandy Creek Trail near Franklin, Pa.  This is a remote trail, way out in rural western Pennsylvania, and all through the ride I kept hearing the crashing of animals through the woods on either side of me.  Luckily the only thing that I saw were 3 porcupines wandering around the trail (no chupacabra this time).

Riding up to the Deep Hollow tunnel on Sandy Creek Trail.

After finishing my ride at Sandy Creek I headed further east, and by 10:30 had made camp near Robin's Island camping area on the Clarion River in Allegheny National Forest.  After Labor Day these campgrounds are pretty much abandoned, and I had the place to myself.  No need for a tent since it was just me and I was planning on leaving early in the morning

A tarp, cot and sleeping bag - home for the night.

View of the Clarion River from my campsite.

The goal of this trip was to investigate some multi-use trails on land recently put under Cooks Forest State Park management.  That meant getting way back on some rough dead end roads onto land I'd never visited before.  It was beautiful remote territory down by the river, but the trails themselves left a lot to be desired.  Mostly they were old logging road double track, and shared with horses - so the riding situation wasn't that great in the first place, and then it was churned up to mud by the horses.  Too bad, since this is such a perfect place for mountain biking. I can only hope that eventually PA DCNR wise up to how many people ride mountain bikes these days and put some effort into REAL mtb trails.

Old doubletrack near Cooks Forest - Boiler Trail.

More logging roads masquerading as mtb trails near Cooks Forest SP.

Plenty of rocks for trails!

Beautiful forest near the river.

Only one chance to kayak since the last entry, since it's been raining in small increments when it eventually does happen.  I took the middle half of the day off work last week and got on Beaver Creek for a quick run while the water was up.  I keep hoping we'll get a good rain event to bring up some of the Allegheny gorge creeks, but it's getting closer and closer to snow season...

I'll end up this post with some miscellaneous fall foliage pictures - gotta love the colors of autumn!

Northern Trumbull County.

Clarion River at Gravel Lick.

Mahoning River near it's mouth in Pennsylvania.

Late fall in Trumbull County.

Compass rose at a local trail.

Seasons Change

Yesterday was the first day of fall, and that summer feeling is fading from the air.  School is well under way, and Kenny is now submerged in geometry and Spanish.  The temperatures are starting to cool, especially at night, and leaves are starting to turn color in some places.

It always seems to me that the first touch of fall makes people double down on their attempts to get outdoors and have fun.  They can see the cold and snow on the horizon and hurry to get in as much outdoor time as possible before the weather chases them inside to wait for spring.  Even though I try to carry on having fun outdoors through the winter, I feel the same urge to take advantage of the nice weather before it goes.

So there's been quite a bit of bike riding, some camping, some hiking, and even a little bit of kayaking over the last month. The weather has been very dry, so the trails are in great shape - but of course that leaves the creeks so low that boating is mostly out of the question.

The weather was great for the Conneaut, Ohio D-Day re-enactment on August 22.  Kenny and I headed up in the morning to check out the encampments before the main event.  It was amazing to see all the people in uniforms from the middle of the last century - American, British, French and German troops each had their own area. The re-enactors buy their own gear and weapons, and come to this event all at their own cost, from all across the eastern U.S.

We watched a re-enactment of a battle over a bridge near the beaches on D-Day, then got a spot for the main battle.  Though they lacked a big armor presence, the landing craft, artillery and aircraft made for an amazing, and very touching, recreation.  This was our first trip to the event, and I'm sure it will be something we'll be going to every year from now on.

I took quite a bit of video of the battle of the bridge, but it gets so blurry when downloaded to Blogspot that it's not worth putting on the blog.

Since we missed out on a real vacation this summer we tried to get as much time off as possible for the Labor Day holiday.  Kenny and I headed over to Allegheny National Forest near Cooks Forest State Park on Thursday afternoon, hoping to beat the holiday crowd and get one of the nice dispersed campsites along the Clarion River.  We got over to the river around 8:00, just about half an hour after a surprise rainstorm brought a couple of inches of rain and high winds to the area.

We managed to get a good site near Robin Island, just before the road was blocked by a downed tree.  It was getting dark as we set up our tents, but we've been camping so many times before that we could probably set them up in total darkness.

Diana had to work on Friday morning, but headed over just after lunch.  The rain brought the river level up from barely runnable to a good low level, so Kenny got in his first solo river kayak trip while we were waiting for here to arrive.

Kenny on the Clarion River.

Diana did manage to find her way to our site, and with the extra gear she brought we finished setting up our campsite.  We had three tents (one for Kenny, one for us, and one for the gear), a big tarp over the eating area and a tarped off shower spot in the back of the campsite.  Kenny even had his hammock set up by his tent for serious relaxing.

Diana took Kenny for some go kart racing and lunch while I took a short kayak ride down the river, with a bike shuttle.  It was amazing how many people were out paddling - I'd never seen so many non-rental boats on the river in one day before.  The high point of the trip was the surf wave at Heath Station, just upstream from Belltown.  There is an old gas pipeline across the bottom of the river, about a foot in diameter.  When the water level is right it makes a really nice, wide surf wave that's just perfect for kayaks.  I spent half an hour surfing, and then later Ken and I came back for another little surf session after lunch.  If we hadn't got the rain the night before the level would have definitely been too low, but it was absolutely perfect for us.

We stayed till Monday, so that made for 5 days out for Ken and I.  There was more boating, some bicycling, hiking, and plenty of relaxing.  We all went up to Leeper to eat at the Sawmill one evening.  All in all it was a pretty great mini-vacation and I'm glad that we got a chance to get out in the good weather.

Diana and I at Beartown Rocks.

Beartown Rocks trail.

 

View over Clarion River Valley from Beartown Rocks overlook.

Clarion River near our campsite.

The next weekend I had hoped that there would be enough rain to make the streams come up so that I could kayak.  Turns out there wasn't enough rain for that, but it was enough rain to make the mountain bike trails soft.  That left me wondering what to do, so I decided to try out a new paved trail, over at Goddard State Park in Pennsylvania.

Goddard State Park, Pennsylvania

It turned out to be a great place to ride.  They have a 12.25 mile loop around the lake, with about a mile of it on park roads, and the rest on paved trails.  These trails aren't flat and straight, like the rail trails around here.  Instead they have plenty of short hills, and lots of curves.  It was so much fun riding that I came back Sunday to ride again.  This place is definitely moving into heavy rotation on my list of fun places to ride!

Lots of hills!

There have also been plenty of bike rides in the last month, both on pavement and on dirt.  I got several rides, including a couple of night rides, on the mountain bike trails at West Branch State Park.  And I got plenty of miles on the Western Reserve Greenway Trail and Little Beaver Creek Greenway.

Evening approached on Little Beaver Creek Greenway.

Sunset at the same spot the next week.

The descent into the Gorge at West Branch State Park.

A fellow trail user on Western Reserve Greenway.

Leaves starting to change color on the Western Reserve Greenway.

There should still be plenty of time to get in another camping trip or two, and hopefully we'll get some rain soon so that the creeks run.  And there is always the opportunity to get out and ride, even if the weather turns.  Autumn is always a special time of year, and I'm looking forward to getting out and enjoying it.

Ken on baritone sax at the Apple Cider Festival parade.

A Photo Post for the 'Summer'

I've been pretty lax about posting on the blog lately - seems like putting up a post each month is about all I can manage.  But I was looking at some of the photos I've taken lately, and thought I could catch people up with our goings on with a few selected pictures.

Kenny seems to be enjoying his summer vacation.  For him it seems that just having the burden of school homework off his back is (almost) enough to make the whole season.  He's been doing well, and is now officially taller than I am.

He is a joker at heart, but is developing into a fine young man.  This is him posing for the camera after his school honors program.

Our vacation was kind of a washout, since I got sick a couple of days beforehand.  We did manage to fit in a little camping, and then get out for a slightly longer stay a month or so later.  It wasn't quite the experience that we were hoping for. but we tried to make the best of the situation.  Here is Diana and Kenny coming out of MacBeth's at Cooks Forest.

Diana is going to hate that I posted her picture, but she's still my sweetheart, and I love her dearly.

I love this picture (taken by Kenny)

Our time at Cooks Forest was great, even though we've been there dozens of times.  A big part of this trip was letting Kenny spend some time in the kayak on the Clarion River, so he can build some strength and confidence to allow him to continue to develop as a young whitewater kayaker.  Even though the rapids on the Clarion are small, he was grinning ear to ear as he punched through the waves.

Kenny and I at the Arroyo boat launch on the Clarion River.

We also spent some time in the woods, including a hike in the Forest Cathedral area, where the forest has never been cut.

Forest Cathedral

It was a beautiful day in the big trees.  We had the place pretty much to ourselves for almost the whole time.  With the rain we've been having this year the undergrowth was incredibly lush, and the mushrooms and other fungus were popping up everywhere.  Noting the incredible variety of fungus we tried to find an example showing each color of the rainbow.  We had them all - except blue, which didn't look like we would be able to find.  But then almost at the end...

Blue!  We found it.

Take a look at that bright orange fungus behind Diana and Kenny at the Big Trees campsite beside the Clarion River.

We saw the river otters in the Clarion again, this time right from our campsite.  But the only wildlife photo we got was this little camp robber, feasting on cheese popcorn.

Did I mention that it's rained a bunch this summer?

It seems like through June and July it rained at least every three or four days.  The wetlands are loving it - all the water has really brought them to life.

The mountain bike trails have been soft, peanut butter mud for most of the season.  I only managed 8 singletrack rides through June and July, and some of them were on trails that were borderline soft.  Even going to Moraine State Park wasn't a guarantee of good riding conditions.

Soft, but not TOO soft.

So there's been a bunch of rail trail riding for me lately.  I've spent quite a bit of time on the Western Reserve Greenway Trail, cranking out the miles in hopes that it would help me when the singletrack was finally dry.

Waterfall on Rock Creek, as seen from the Greenway.

I'm not the only one on the rail trail though. There have been a lot of people riding & walking this summer.  And the wildlife has been abundant - I've seen deer, turkeys, pheasant, a red fox, and this guy.

There's been some road riding too, but not that much - distracted drivers are WAY more dangerous than the rocks and roots on the mountain bike trails.  But some roads are a little safer than others to ride...

No Trespassing (darn it)

I've also spent some weekend time with my buddy Dave.  He doesn't get around too well anymore, so we've been checking out the accessible trails in our area.  This one at Hogback Ridge Park is a definite favorite.

I've been up to Mill Creek Park for lunch a few times since spring.  It's always a welcome break to get up to the fantastic Fellows Riverside Garden for a bit in the middle of the day.

My favorite lunch spot there is a bench that sits beneath two Dawn Redwoods.  In Ohio.  Too cool.

And then there are the photos that I've taken while just out driving around.  Most are blurry and poorly centered, but there are a couple I like. 

Humidity after the rain.

Farmland in Pennsylvania, near Moraine State Park.

I've got a thing about taking pictures of churches in decay.

One of our local fracking operations.

And one final photo - along with some philosopy - from Fellows Riverside Gardens.

Peace, y'all.