Beaver Creek State Park in Ohio

The one thing about hiking is getting there early. This is for several reasons. some of the reasons are to be ahead of everyone, sometimes it's for a photo and I don’t want other bipeds in it, less noise, and now so I can get spiderwebs in my face. The spider webs show me that no animal or human has been on that part of the trail today.  

I arrived at the Beaver Creek State Park parking lot at 0800. This would be my baptism under fire for the new chest pack.   

I would start out with my battery pack today as the prime power source for the GoPro13. The set up worked better than I had hoped.   

I will utilize this set up when fishing in the future.   

I put on a hike together in the park consisting of 13 plus miles. I will be concentrating on the North Country Trail today.  

The trail goes through the state park. I would take it to the west where route 7 reaches.  

This section is not used to a lot. I had my Garmin 64sx and I could reconnoiter to find the trail. Yea this section is where I saw bear scat and believe I heard a bear huff at me. I was on the high ground, and I just kept on trucking.  

The GoPro13 does not do well in low light scenarios. The videos look ok, but I know they could be better. I just wanted to mention that some of the quality is not the best and explain the reason.  

I only saw one person physically on the trail I was hiking today. I think the wet trail and the number of mosquitoes scared a lot of people away.  

On a wildlife note, I saw more rabbits today thanks to seeing them in the wild in a long time. It was nice to see the numbers I did.  

At the start of the hike, it was nearly 70 degrees. With the amount of fog in the valley it was going to be humid and hot. I had three liters of water today.  

I was wearing shorts and long sleeves. I have found that in the hottest conditions that 3 liters will work for me.   

The morning weather was foggy, very foggy. The GoPro had several issues as you can tell when I was under canopy. The pace was ok, I truly could have gone faster, but I would have paid for it dearly on the return loop. I backed off each time I found myself leaning into the hike and swinging my arms.

I notified the NCT folks about the bear. I will do another section of the NCT this week weather dependent.

Be well folks and drink water!

Sonder

Beaver Creek State Park in Ohio

Aerial Photo

I have been here before but only to fish. This was the first time I have ever visited this area.

This is part of the Western Allegheny Plateau and shown here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegheny_Plateau

You will find Calcutta, Ohio nestled in Columbiana County. This area is very rural and you will need to plan accordingly because of the lack of infrastructure.

This is not a bad thing and in fact it is a good thing from a visitors point of view.  A person just needs to plan accordingly when visiting the area.

I arrived on Saturday the 7^th of June to an almost empty parking lot.  Beaver Creek was up and muddy and on the drop.

I laid out a trek of 13 miles, but I would end up falling short because of how busy I saw the park when I got back to the parking lot.

I started with the Alltrails (alltrails.com) web site and downloaded a few trails. Then I linked them all together using my Garmin Basecamp program.

During the 11.2-mile hike I would ascend and descend over 1200 feet.

I only saw a few hikers out on this day.  I was a little surprised. I don’t know why it was not as busy on the trails. Most of the people I saw were involved more with the park festivities.

There were a lot of people attending the goings on at Pioneer Village. Here is a link for the park. https://ohiodnr.gov/go-and-do/plan-a-visit/find-a-property/beaver-creek-state-park

I managed to see two beautiful Barred Owls on this day. They were roosting and I happened to catch them off guard. They flew away but you can clearly see a glimpse of them on the video below. They come and go out of frame quickly.

The terrain I would encounter would go from gravel, rocky, dirt, and spongy dirt under the hemlock trees. This would be a great area in the fall to see wit the mixture of hard woods and conifers.

The bathroom facilities were extremely clean.

One note was nice and never really had an opportunity to hike on single track trails. This means when passing someone, they would need to step off and allow you to pass. This was unique to me and likely another reason I did not see other people on this day.

I hope you enjoy the artwork and the write up.

Be well,

Sonder