Looking for a great place to go hiking in your region of Ohio? I will describe three great places to go hiking in each of five geographic regions of Ohio. In this post I've added a fourth hike for southwest Ohio bringing the total to sixteen hikes. All are hikes that Deb and I have completed. Many are favorites that we've hiked many times.
Five years ago, I wrote an article entitled "Ten Great Hikes in Ohio" and then a follow-up "Ten More Great Hikes in Ohio". Since then Deb and I have traveled Read more ➜ Sixteen Great Hikes in Ohio
Looking for a great place to go hiking in your region of Ohio? I will describe three great places to go hiking in each of five geographic regions of Ohio. In this post I've added a fourth hike for southwest Ohio bringing the total to sixteen hikes. All are hikes that Deb and I have completed. Many are favorites that we've hiked many times.
Five years ago, I wrote an article entitled "Ten Great Hikes in Ohio" and then a follow-up "Ten More Great Hikes in Ohio". Since then Deb and I have traveled Read more ➜ 
Have you enjoyed the thrill of standing in a high place surveying the landscape far below? It's a bit of a challenge to find such places in a natural setting in Ohio, but not impossible. Below is a list of scenic overlooks or vistas that Deb and I have enjoyed along with links to their location and some notes.
Its not possible to simply look at a topographic map and find good scenic overlooks. As Ohio doesn't have mountains, a hilltop may potentially offer a vista but be so heavily forested 
Spring is a great time to see Ohio waterfalls. Many Ohio waterfalls dry up in the summer heat. But in spring, with melting snow, saturated ground, and rain showers, these waterfalls can be quite spectacular. Below is a list of some of the Ohio waterfalls we've visited categorized by geographic region.
Central Ohio
Hayden Falls (Franklin County) - an easily accessible waterfall in the city limits of Columbus
Honey Run Falls (Knox County) - a waterfall across from a park with hiking 
For some time I had been wanting to learn more about ferns, so I took advantage of a workshop on fern identification being held at the Wahkeena Nature Preserve in Fairfield County, Ohio. Wahkeena is a great place to learn about ferns since 29 species of fern grow there (Wahkeena's official blog publishes a list of their local fern species). Naturalist Tom Shisler led the workshop which is called Focus on Ferns. In this post I'm going to introduce you to a number of common ferns found in Ohio by 
Looking for a local Ohio hike longer than a day-hike but shorter than hiking the Appalachian Trail? There are several sites where you can go backpacking in Ohio, ranging from overnight trips to trips of several days.
Northeast Ohio
Cuyahoga Valley National Park
This is the only national park in Ohio. The Cuyahoga Valley National Park features a 19-mile hiking trail along a former Erie Canal towpath. Camping facilities are available for backpackers along the trail. The park service 
The Ohio outdoors is relatively tame compared to other parts of the country. We have no mountains, no swamps with large carnivorous reptiles, no blistering hot deserts, and no oceans. Still there are dangers facing the unwary and people do get killed and injured in the Ohio outdoors. The purpose of this article is to discuss some of those dangers as well as ways to mitigate them.
Dangerous Cliffs
Ohio does not have mountains, but we do have sandstone and dolomite cliffs. A fall 
This post is meant as an aid to snake identification. In addition to posting photos of all the snakes, I try to point out color variations within a species, where the species is found in Ohio, and what the typical length of an adult is. I have tried to group snakes to make it easier to distinguish between similar-looking species.
I focus on the visual characteristics of the snakes; for a more detailed description of the snake (its habitats, behavior, etc.), I have provided links to three sources 
In our visits to Ohio's parks and preserves we've seen many wooden, covered bridges. Since wood was a cheap and plentiful in the 19th century, it was used in the construction of bridges across the many creeks and streams of Ohio. Unfortunately, a wooden bridge exposed to the elements - sun, rain, snow, ice has a a short lifespan - perhaps as short as 10 years. By adding wood siding and a pitched roof, the bridges lifespan can be greatly extended - perhaps as long as 80 or 100 years. This was the 
This post illustrates a couple of dozen, common species of spring wildflowers in Ohio. The scientific name in each caption links to an article where you can learn more about that species (a Wikipedia article, if possible). It also lists the months in which you can expect to see each species bloom in central Ohio. In southern Ohio they will bloom a little earlier and in northern Ohio a little later.
Cutleaf Toothwort
The photo below shows some of the foliage.
Mayapple
The blossom 
Although Ohio has a number of tick species, the species which carries Lyme disease has been relatively absent from our state… until now. The Lyme-carrying tick is the Black Legged Tick, also known as the Deer Tick (Ixodes scapularis). There are now established populations of Black Legged Ticks in 26 Ohio counties including Franklin and Delaware counties in Central Ohio. Most of the affected counties are east of Interstate 71 (see the link to the Toledo Blade at the end of this post for a map of