Englewood MetroPark

Englewood is one of the Five Rivers MetroParks.  It is northwest of Dayton and it is where I hiked on Saturday, February 6, 2016.  I only hiked in the East Park, hiking most of the Red (1.2 miles) and Green (3.8) Trails.  As with the other MetroParks several different shorter trails share a portion of the longest (in this case Green) trail, although here the shorter trails cover more unique ground.

I started at Point 16 because I saw the sign and an open area across the road.  In hindsight, it is probably best to park at the area marked "Trailhead" on the map.  Who knew?  Anyway, the first section of the Red Trail heading away from the road is just early successional forest, small trees and no spectacular geologic or botanical features.  In other words - kind of boring, especially in the winter.  I turned right at point 17 onto the Green Trail and the trees got a little bigger and the trail had some turns and dips and rises on its way to Oaks Falls.

It's kind of hard to tell from the picture but there is not really a lot to see here.  OK, that is exactly what you can tell from the picture.  It is just a small stream making a short fall without a good area from which to view it.  So I did not linger for long, but continued on my way to Patty Falls.

Patty falls is actually two waterfalls.  The Green Trail goes above them and you can take the Purple trail down to view them from below.  The lower pic is not my best work but the lighting was poor and it was a rather small waterfall and there was something in my eye and.............  Anyway, you can stand close enough to the bigger fall to feel some of the spray, not that you would want to in February.

After leaving Patty Falls the trail goes through a fairly young section of forest that has occasional large trees known as "wolf trees."  These are trees that grew up in a field when there were no other trees close by.  Not only are they larger than the other trees that have more recently grown around them, they have lower limbs (or the dead subs of lower limbs that have been shaded out) and have a greater horizontal spread than a typical forest-grown tree.  Here in Englewood, most of the wolf trees are white oaks.

Beyond point 24 the trail is on a boardwalk through the Pumpkin Spice Ash and Swamp Forest.  I'm sure the emerald ash borers appreciate the fact that Five Rivers MetroParks has chosen to inject pumpkin spice flavor into the ash trees.  Oh wait, its just pumpkin ash - no spice - and they are trying to save them because pumpkin ash is a species that is rare in Ohio.  I may come back when leaves are on the trees to get a better feel for the composition of this swamp forest.  In addition to the pumpkin ash I noticed some hickory (shellbark I presume) and not many sycamore or cottonwood that you would expect closer to the river.

I took a left at point 5 and continued on towards Martindale Falls, named after Wink Martindale, the host of the world famous TV game show Tic-Tac-Dough.  The woods along this stretch are a bit more mature on the left, while on the right a bridle trail goes through a field reverting to forest.

Martindale Falls from above

 

Martindale Falls from below

The trail away from the falls is parallel to the trail to them but at a lower elevation.  The area to the right is not part of the park but there are trails and occasional hikers.  This is a nice stretch of woods that continues until you reach point 7 and turn right.  There the trail gets closer to the Stillwater River and goes through the sycamore, cottonwood, and box elder of the riparian forest.  Along the way there are many large, interestingly shaped sycamores.  Then the trail goes through a mile-long mud puddle.  That is how you know you are getting close to Englewood Lake.

 
It is obviously a man-made lake created when they excavated soil to use to build Englewood Dam.  They have since un-dammed the river and have created channels to and from the river to give the lake a fresh supply of water.

I'll review Aullwood Garden and South Park (yes, that is what it is called) when I visit them in the early summer.

Twin Creek MetroPark

As the picture shows Twin Creek is part of the Five Rivers MetroParks which are in the Greater Dayton are.  Twin Creek is southwest of Dayton.  There are two larger loop trails and these are made up of smaller loops.  For example, the Orange Trail is 6 miles and there are five other trails between 1.1 and 2.9 miles that mostly coincide with the Orange Trail except for a short connector section to make them loops (look at the map to see how bad of a job I did explaining it).  The two other parks in the system that I have hiked also have a similar trail layout.

On Saturday, January 30, I hiked most of the 6-mile Orange Trail and the 2-mile White Trail.  The south parking lot on Chamberlain Rd is the trailhead for both trails so that is where I parked.  I will always park there because of an experience I had previously.  I hiked the Orange trail on a day when it was 15 degrees when I started hiking and didn't get much warmer.  I also started at the south lot and hiked the half of the loop along the creek first.  I dressed for the weather and was fine until I hiked out of the valley and to the top of an exposed and very windy hill.  The other parking lot is called High View and is not misnamed.  Cold temperatures and strong winds do not mix well.  Now when I hike (no matter what the weather) I avoid the High View by turning left at point 10 and follow the Blue Trail to point 1.

But enough about me, on this hike the temperature was about 30 degrees to start, warming to the 50's by the time I finished.  The mud was frozen for the first half of the Orange Trail and a sloppy mess after that.

I started out going to the right (counterclockwise).  The trail goes through a slightly hilly area that is reverting to forest.  There is a lot of cedar here.Then the trail reaches a level area.

This area has been mowed recently, although hopefully this will be allowed to follow the path (pun intended) of the hillier areas to returning to forest.  But you don't have to wait because the trail turns right and enters existing forest and passes the remains of the 2000 year old Carlisle Fort.

The trail continues along as the ravine on the right gets deeper.  It is a pleasant and scenic hike.  Don't let my lack of pictures dissuade you of that. The trail then winds down to the creek that gives the park its name.  It looks something like this:

That picture was taken looking downstream.  The trail goes upstream with the creek on your right and a field on the left.  After you pass point 7 the trail crosses a small stream.  It was still frozen and very scenic.

The trail goes along the creek through a riparian forest.  The riparian zone is the lowland along a creek or river that occasionally floods, usually in the spring. This area is mostly cottonwood, sycamore and box elder and it continues for the next mile.

Some of the sycamores are large and contorted into strange shapes.  Sometimes the sun is angled correctly and you can capture the bright white limbs against the deep blue cloudless sky.

A couple more pictures of Twin Creek

I turned left at Point 10 and as the trail went uphill the tree species changed.  By the time I got to the top of the short climb uphill I was surrounded by oaks and maples and beeches.  The band was back together.  After a couple tenths of a mile of decent upland hardwood forest the trees start getting smaller and there are more black cherry and black locust.  Beyond that you get back into the cedar similar to how the hike started.  You just walked backwards in time (or you would have had you been with me).  The forest type changed and then got progressively younger.  Nothing earth-shattering but it is one of the things that I pay more attention to on winter hikes.

And then, after turning left at Point 1 to avoid High Winds...... err, View and Passing Point 2 the process is played out again, this time the forest gets older as you go.  This cycle happens several more times with a trip by Dogwood Pond thrown into the middle of it all.

Partially frozen Dogwood Pond

After passing Point 5 the trail stays in the cedar/ early successional forest and, as it was now over 50 degrees, gets progressively muddier.  It was like walking back in time to when animals first climbed out of the ocean.  Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration and over-dramatization but at times I felt like I was ice skating, except that I didn't fall.  Can't say the same about my futile attempts at skating.

After a brief stop at my car to dump all the layers of clothing I had shed as the temperature increased by 20 degrees I crossed Chamberlain Rd into the southern section of the park.  This used to be a Boy Scout camp until 1991, and was purchased by MetroParks in 1997.  There are still a lot of remnants of human activity in this section of the park.  I stayed on the White Trail instead of the slightly longer Purple Trail because I remember the latter as being muddier and I had enough of mud at this point.

At this particular time I should probably say something about emerald ash borer, so here it goes:  EAB has killed millions of ash trees and many of them are along the Silver Trail.  Ash trees get brittle and fall a part quickly after they die (As opposed to oaks, which can retain dead limbs for many years. I will talk about this in an upcoming post about Englewood Metropark).  Until they remove these trees they are a hazard, especially when it is windy, i.e. March and April.

So, why am I bothering to mention this muddy hazardous hike?  Because a year and a half ago it wasn't muddy or hazardous when I hiked it.  It was a sunny late October day, 50-something degrees with a light breeze rustling the multicolored leaves before blowing through the few remaining hairs on my head.  It was perfect weather.  I had hiked at nearby Germantown Metropark and had the time for another couple miles of Fall Color.  I had just feasted on beef jerky and coffee on the ride between hikes.  In short, it was the kind of day that could make (insert your favorite horrible, devastated landscape) seem beautiful.

 

And what do I post a picture of?  A partially frozen stream that is flowing under the ice into Lake George.  Obviously not a lake - just a tiny little pond.  I didn't name it so don't blame me.  It was the most scenic photo I took on this late January day.  The only other option was a photo of a really old, mostly dead sycamore.  Trust me, between Point 14 on the map and Lake (Pond) George there is some good fall color at the right time of the year.

So, this blog is supposed to help people decide when to hike.  Don't hike Twin Creek in the winter when it is above freezing - it is too muddy.  If you hike in the winter when it is well below freezing avoid High View - too cold and wind-chilly.  Otherwise, watch out for falling ash trees and limbs in the southern section.

  A photo of a really old, mostly dead sycamore

 

Cantwell Cliffs

Cantwell Cliffs is part of Hocking Hills State Park, although it is about 15 miles from Old Man's Cave and the campground.  The map can be viewed by going to the above link and clicking on the Cantwell  Cliffs Trail Map link.  It is a PDF and I have not had any luck linking to PDFs so two clicks are required.  The map online is not as good as the one on the trail signs in the park.  In addition to being "cartoony" it is out of date.  The trail to the right of the shelter house is no longer used and there is one other difference I will mention shortly.

To start the hike you walk down hill (and eventually down steps) past the shelter house to the edge of the cliffs.  If you go to the right you can view the world from above first.  I chose to descend into the hollow.  Following this route and turning left brings you to this:

The trail goes between the cliff and the rock.  The out-dated map online refers to this as Fat Woman's Squeeze.  That name is no longer used in the park.  It is actually not as much of a squeeze as it appears in the picture.  Personally, even though I weigh &% pounds more than when I first hiked here #$ years ago, I do not think it is a squeeze at all, although I do find myself wishing that I had worn a smaller backpack.  Stupid bulky backpacks.

Anyway, after you hiked the portion of the trail that is definitely not called Fat Woman's Squeeze you will find yourself looking at a waterfall.  It is not a particularly large fall but it is the largest of the three in the park.  There used to be paths going behind the waterfall and over rocks and along sandy slopes before going downhill and joining the gorge trail.  That is no longer an official trail but the odds are pretty good that you will see someone there anyway.  The official trail curls to the right around that half of Fat Woman's Squeeze if it was still called that to the proverbial fork in the trail.  Going right the trail follows the base of the cliffs.  Going to the left is the Gorge Trail Loop.  This trail provides distant views of the waterfalls and cliffs at the beginning and a wetter, greener, lusher landscape along the left side of the loop compared to most of the trails in Hocking Hills State Park.  On this day I skipped the Gorge Trail and took a right.

After only a couple minutes you come to the second waterfall.  It had only been below freezing for 36 hours before this picture was taken so the icicles are nowhere near their peak. The cones at the bottom of the falls weren't either.

Now is a good time to talk about why I like Cantwell Cliffs and what makes it different than other places in the Hocking Hills region.  It wasn't obvious at first to me, so I will share it with you and spare you the hours of deep thought and personal reflection that it took for me to figure it out. It is that you can walk along the bottom of the 80' to 100' tall cliff, touching the cliff wall with your hand and feeling the splatter of the waterfall on your face, and 10 to 15 minutes later you are walking along the top of the cliff with an obstructed view of the trail below.  There are higher cliffs, bigger falls and better views (see Conkle's Hollow) in the region but being able to quickly transition from the bottom to the top is rather unique.  You brain is able to piece together the view from below and above into one panorama better than any camera and software can.  Or maybe I just can't take pictures worth a damn.

Anyway, the trail goes past the base of the waterfall and climbs up some steps, many of which are nowhere near horizontal.  (In the middle of the climb there are more steps to the right that lead to the top of the cliff.  If you won't to hike up and experience an even quicker transition from bottom of the cliff to the top you can.  Just be sure to come back down and continue the hike.)  It had started to snow a little harder about this time and that, combined with the interesting views of the cliff wall on my right and the small stream from the waterfall increasingly further below me on my left kept my eyes occupied.  Before I knew it another small hollow had opened up in front of me and their was the third waterfall.  The trail again goes by the base of the waterfall.  I wanted the perfect picture but the waterfall was too tall to get it all in one pic and the trail was never far enough away before it started climbing up several more angled and now snow-covered steps,  This is actually a bigger climb than the one after the second waterfall and you are only about twenty feet from the top of the cliff.  This part of the trail is level so you can concentrate on the view of the gorge as it widens to the left and a wide hollow approaches from the right as you follow the cliff face in that direction.  I tried to concentrate on the view but all I could see is snow and I was distracted by the smell of woodsmoke.  I was sure that this was a hallucination.

The trail continues around to the right but you don't get to see the stream (and waterfall) that created this larger hollow as you are near the park boundary.  In my younger days I did hike down to it and was disappointed.  The waterfall was only 10 -15 feet and did not have much water compared to the other waterfalls.  There was also a washing machine near the bottom of the fall.  If you stay on the trail you will be spared this disappointment as the trail climbs some mostly level steps to the top of the cliffs.  Again, there is a nice view from up here, especially when it is snowing.  I love winter hikes.  As I approached the rest shelter I had forgotten that I smelled smoke earlier.  I actually was startled when there was suddenly a little kid standing six feet from me.  There was a family of three that had lit a fire in the fireplace of the rest shelter.  It is a small shelter and only has three walls and I had no memory of there being a fireplace but, there they were, starting to prepare lunch.

Right after you pass the shelter the third waterfall comes back into view.  The view is spectacular.  At most of the waterfalls in the region the cliff walls along the side of the stream are vertical half of the distance and then slope the rest of the way to the stream.  Here they are vertical nearly the entire distance.  Everything is further below you, but as far as horizontal distance everything is closer to you.  There are trees that are only thirty feet from you that are eighty feet tall before their first branches.  Sadly, I have not been able to capture this in a pic.  There is just no perspective when you are standing at the edge off a cliff staring down eighty feet of tree trunk. I promise you won't be disappointed when you see it in person.

The view is repeated at the second waterfall.  The trail goes back to the base of the steps that lead back up to the parking lot.  There is a sign straight ahead saying that it is not a trail and is illegal to hike off the trail.  Years ago there was no such sign and I did hike to the top of the first waterfall.  The view is not as spectacular because the hollow is wider and there are no trees growing near the cliffs.  Even though there was no sign telling me not to I still only hiked there once, so there must not be much to see.  In this case it is best (and safest) to obey the sign and either head back down and hike the Gorge Trail Loop or return to the parking lot. 

So, if you stop and stare a lot and hike the Gorge Trail it would be about three miles and it would take a little over two hours.  Skip the Gorge Trail and stare at stuff less (hard to do your first couple times here) and you can cut the time and distance in half.  This would matter if you had limited time and were trying to go to several of the lesser-visited attractions in the region (Rock House, Cantwell Cliffs, Rockbridge, and Clear Creek).