Charles Alley Nature Park is a 300 acre city park in Lancaster. The park features two lakes, a nature center, and six miles of hiking trails. Currently 20 acres are being developed for use as a primitive campsite.
We visited Alley Park on a cold, but sunny day in mid-February. The trail head is to the left of the main parking area. Nearby is a picnic shelter, rest rooms, and an informational kiosk. The trail head leads to Lake Loretta passing a rustic cabin on the way. The lake had Read more ➜ Alley Park
Charles Alley Nature Park is a 300 acre city park in Lancaster. The park features two lakes, a nature center, and six miles of hiking trails. Currently 20 acres are being developed for use as a primitive campsite.
We visited Alley Park on a cold, but sunny day in mid-February. The trail head is to the left of the main parking area. Nearby is a picnic shelter, rest rooms, and an informational kiosk. The trail head leads to Lake Loretta passing a rustic cabin on the way. The lake had Read more ➜ 
Hoover Reservoir supplies the city of Columbus with its drinking water. At eight different sites around the reservoir is the Hoover Reservoir Park. It is a great recreational resource for residents and tourists, and it is important sanctuary for birds as well. Today I'm going to focus on one of the lesser known sites of this park: Hoover Meadows.
Hoover Meadows is 74.77 acres. Although a sign marks its entrance, the place looks fairly nondescript from the road. A row of conifers divides 
The Scenic River Trail is a 3.4 mile hiking / mountain biking trail located in Wayne National Forest north of Marietta. One end of the trail is at the Leith Run Camp Site along the Ohio River. The other end is at a small dirt parking lot up in the surrounding hills off of County Road 9.
We visited in early September about the time that the remnants of hurricane Irene were reaching Ohio. Although the winds were not strong, the weather was hot and humid with a continuous, drizzling rain.
We 
Rock Stalls Natural Sanctuary is a private preserve that is owned and operated by Camp Akita, but the management of Camp Akita also allows access to the general public. So this past Sunday Bob and I decided to stop by and see what we had been missing.
I've published a GPS trace of our hike at the end of this article. From the parking lot at the western end, you go a short ways until the trail branches. You can take either branch because this portion of the trail is a loop. We decided 
Strouds Run State Park is located in scenic Athens County close to Ohio University. The park and several adjacent parks and preserves feature miles of trails for hikers, mountain bikers, and equestrians.
We visited the park several times last year. The park consists of 2,606 acres of forested hills and Dow Lake (a large man-made lake). Adjacent to the park is the 22 acre Sells Park owned by the city of Athens, the 106 acre Riddle State Nature Preserve and the 75 acre Blair Preserve. The parks 
Lamping Homestead Recreation Area is located in the Marietta Unit of Wayne National Forest. It offers opportunities for camping, fishing, hiking, mountain biking, and picnicking. A 4.5 mile loop trail is open to both hikers and mountain bikers.
We were on vacation, staying in Marietta, OH this past Labor Day weekend. The remnants of a gulf coast hurricane were passing through Ohio bringing unusually warm and humid gulf coast air and occasional rain. We decided to drive north 
The Petroglyphs
The Leo Petroglyph State Memorial is a site with about 37 petroglyphs (line drawings carved in stone). The petroglyphs were made on an outcropping of bedrock consisting of Black Hand sandstone. Based on the weathering of the exposed sandstone, it is believed that the carvings are about 700 years old. That age would make them the handiwork of the Fort Ancient Indians, a late prehistoric culture that was active in Ohio from about 1000 A.D. to 1650 A.D.
I wasn't sure exactly what 
Bird watching is just one of the attractions of Blendon Woods Metro Park. The park features two observation shelters near Thoreau Lake. In addition the rear of the Nature Center has windows that look out on a number of bird feeders.
A wheelchair accessible trail (Pond Trail) extends from the parking lot near the Nature Center to Thoreau Lake. It's only 0.3 miles long. You are very likely to hear and see woodpeckers on your way there.
In the photo below I'm looking at a bird 
This past September we visited Lake Vesuvius in Wayne National Forest. We followed the Lakeshore Trail counter-clockwise around the lake. This trail is supposed to be 8 miles long. The first mile had us traveling past a number of cliffs and outcroppings; if you were to just go a mile and then turn around, you'd have a very scenic hike of moderate difficulty. You'd even get to see the cliff and watery slump block pictured above.
The Lakeshore Trail
Once you go up the steps that lie 
If you visit a number of parks and forests in Ohio, you will occasionally come across a structure built of sandstone blocks that resembles the bottom of a pyramid. A few of these are intact; many are just ruins overgrown with plants. These are the remnants of blast furnaces built in the early nineteenth century. But what are they doing out in the middle of the forest?
In the above photo the topmost, wooden building is the bridge loft. Workers in the bridge loft dropped raw materials through