Western Reserve Greenway Trail, Ohio

The Western Reserve Greenway Trail is a part of the Great Ohio Lake to River Greenway, travelling through Ashtabula and Trumbull counties:

https://www.ashtabulametroparks.com/western-reserve-greenway-trail/

http://trumbullmetroparks.org/parks-and-trails/western-reserve-greenway

All photos are from the northern Trumbull county portion of the trail.

P.S. Turn up the sound on the video clip to hear the owls calling.

Recent wet snow brought down many trees, but this was the only trail blockage of the day.

Autumn foliage lingers...

...but will soon be gone.

Rest stop at Trumbull/Ashtabula county line.

False Horizons

I guess it's time to write another blog post, now that the holidays are done and the new year is here.

Personally, I'm not too excited about the new year.  The best thing about it is that it means that 2016 is finally over. It was not a banner year for me, and I'm glad to see it go.  But the course ahead looks grim, and the prospect of watching the country go down in flames over the next four years really depresses me.  So I've made a decision to have a personal boycott of all news media until January 2021 - everything may suck, but I won't know about it.  As a part of this effort I'm no longer visiting Facebook - not because I believe that it's inherently bad, but because I don't want to see the news or all the ugly things that ignorant, evil people believe. I have been sharing items to the bicycling page I made for our area on occasion but I'm no longer actually visiting my page.  This is for my own piece of mind - if it bothers you, kindly keep it to yourself.

Since I last posted in October the fall riding season has long since come to an end.  But late fall might be my favorite time of the year, and I took advantage of every bit of good weather to get outside. There was a great camping trip with Diana at Kelly Pines in the Allegheny National Forest, quite a bit of trail work, and of course lots of bike riding. That includes some great mountain bike rides as well as plenty of pavement miles.  I made several trips down to Beaver Creek State Park to ride the trails down there, including the still to be finished new trail above Salamander Trail. I think that Beaver Creek might have the most mountain bike suitable terrain in Ohio, and the new trail takes advantage of it to the fullest extents.  The riding can be very technical, but I love that stuff and really enjoy getting out on Dogwood, Salamander, and the new trail.

Of course I also got in plenty of fall rides at West Branch, the park that's just 25 miles down the road.  Much of that was night riding, which doesn't really make for great photos but is still a lot of fun.  I just checked back on my MapMyRide ride log, and it looks like the only other singletrack that I rode in the fall was at North Road Nature Preserve, where I had a whole bunch of short, after work rides.

Apparently I never get tired of taking pictures of the West Branch skinnies.

Freshly raked trails at North Road Nature Preserve

Speaking of North Park Nature Preserve, I've finally finished the trail project that I committed to four long years ago.  So the last of the three trails, the one that took twice as long as the others, is finally finished.  The first two trails, Red Trail and Blue Trail, mostly went through a semi-mature forest where clearing the trail corridor and building the tread was easy.  This last one, Yellow Trail, has about half it's distance in a mature forest, with the remainder located in dense scrub.  The forest part of the trail was easy enough, but clearing and building trail through the scrub was incredibly difficult.  Just clearing a corridor was very tough, and since the trail wasn't finished and not getting any user traffic, it was a constant battle to maintain the already built trail.  And the ground in the scrubby section was an unbelievable mess of wet spots and pot holes, so that making a tread required several rock armoring and infill sections.

And then there was the wet spot - a short section of very dense scrub that tends to hold water way longer than anywhere else we built.  Because of the restraints of the property we had to build at least some trail in this wet area, or not build the loop at all.  Thinking that the only solution was going to be to build over 100' of turnpiking, we put this section off for last.  But with volunteer hours dropping off I was faced with the prospect of singlehandedly bringing back several tons of fill gravel with our trail wagon - something that would have likely taken me another year to do.  So I was very happy when Trumbull Metroparks agreed to give us enough money to build a 120' long boardwalk across this problem area.  I started construction in August, and finally finished in October.  Most of the construction and material hauling I did myself, but there were a few kind souls who pitched in for a work session or two.

The boardwalk with newly finished transition.

Stopping to cut out a downed tree while hauling more lumber back to the build site.

I'm very glad to have this project done, since it already has taken longer than I thought it would, and I'd like to get involved with some trail building at other parks.  But after finishing off the two loops and one out'n'back trail I started to wonder if there was a way to make that out'n'back into a loop.  Long story short - this winter I'm working on adding another 1/3 mile of trail through mature woods to make Blue Trail into a loop.  Next year I'd like to work on adding some mtb specific features to the trails, but I haven't committed to that yet.

New trail will run through the trees on the creek bank.

During the summer I had decided that I was spending too much time riding on the rail trails, and not enough riding my mountain bike in the woods.  So I started riding more mtb miles, but I still managed to get in quite a bit of different rail trail rides.  Of course I did the local trails - Western Reserve Greenway & Little Beaver Creek Greenway - but I also managed to hit a couple that I don't get to that much.  One trip on the Maple Highlands Trail had an unfortunate incident where I managed to crash on pavement in dry, clear weather.  I managed to ride through a small moist spot on the trail, which was slippery as owl snot and hit the pavement hard.  I was lucky I had my helmet on, because I banged my head off the pavement way harder than I really wanted to.

I also managed to put a large hole in my elbow, which is still not healed 6 weeks later.

I made a Thanksgiving day ride on part of the Ohio & Erie Towpath Trail, doing some volunteer work for the Industrial Heartland Trail Coalition by checking one of the 'trail itineraries' that they are developing.  It turned out to be an interesting ride, with almost no one on the trail, rain most of the way - and a nice layer of crushed limestone trail surface spread evenly over me and my bike.

Covered with grit.

I also made a couple of snow rides in the cold periods of December & January, evenly split between mountain biking and pavement riding.  Keeping my schedule of riding 3 or 4 days a week was pretty nice, and I managed to hit my 2000 mile goal for 2016 by finishing with 2100 miles. Not sure how many miles I'll try for this year. I'll get in as many as I can during the winter, and then see how the numbers shape up when the weather starts to break.  

Near the end of the year I took a look at some of the video that I'd take while out riding, and put together a short video of my riding year in review (though there are some clips included from before 2016).  I did the same thing last year, and was happy with the result, but this year the song I found to be the soundtrack really added a lot.  This year's review turned out even better than last years, if I may say so myself!

Here's hoping that your trails are dry, the wind is at your back, and the hills are few.

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.