Part of my logic in driving 2-1/2 hours had to do with fall colors. Here in Ohio we are on the verge of peak, with some places seeing more colors than others. Although there were a handful of brilliant yellow trees, fewer reds, it's still a bit early.

Hiking forested trails along dolomite and limestone gorge made for a nice, varied hike. Some rough terrain, some flat, some tourists (oh well...), and enough elevation change to give a nice burn to the legs. At times I had the trails to myself, but on occasion had to put up with groups of children, clusters of bored teenagers, along with other nature lovers. Weekdays hiking the gorge would undoubtedly be blissful.

Although I didn't explore the nooks and crannies of the cliffs (usual "stay on the trail" signs were plentiful), they made for a dramatic backdrop along some of the trails.

There's nothing quite so soothing as a cool day's hike where the sound of water is plentiful to mingle with the birds and scurrying squirrels.

On the premises is the Audubon Museum which houses one of the largest collections of his original art. Only partially because it was wonderfully air conditioned, I toured the museum and nature observatory (which was largely a round room looking out on a bunch of bird feeders). Included in the museum, and awe-inspiring, are several displayed copies of his Birds of America books, and I mean the monstrous originals, not the subsequent smaller reprints. These original tomes were issued in the most inconvenient size of about 30 x 48...and that's inches, folks. Not exactly sized for shelving on your typical bookcase. But back to the hike...after all, this is a hiking blog.

Besides lamenting that I forgot the bug spray (NEVER go in the woods without it Gary...), the park offers a chance to get away from civilization, in a hurry. Most trails I hike aren't remote enough to lose the sights and sounds of the modern world, but in this park those non-natural artifacts seemed to disappear quicker than usual. It wasn't long before I was huffing and puffing up and down the hilly trails and realizing the only sounds were my breath, the crunch of my feet, the incessant cicadas, and an assortment of bird calls. The park is known for its 20 different species of warblers and an abundance of other birds, such as great blue herons, green herons, and belted kingfishers, and mammals. Although I only saw some squirrels and tons of turtles, the park boasts frequent sightings of beaver, fox, deer, muskrat, and raccoons. I'm sure in Audubon's day there were probably black bear roaming around as well. Although the day was really hot, the trails were all shaded and survivable.

If one looks carefully, there is occasional color amongst the overpowering green and brown,

but these residents could care less about the beauty of a blue flower.

The path was rich with well-worn elevated footpaths and bridges,

but again, another oblivious turtle.

Sometimes the going was a little tough, as evidenced by this fallen tree in a most inconvenient spot. I'm sure someone heard this tree in the forest fall, despite that old saying.

Today I took off on a cloudy, post-winter day to see what the small, but promising, Oakwoods Nature Preserve had to offer. Locate a quick 10 minutes from Findlay, I'd hoped at least it offered non-man-made trails (translation: no paving!). In that area I wasn't disappointed.

The Preserve is a tiny 76 acres, but combines wetlands, woods, and prairie for an interesting (and quick) trek through those habitats. I did see a woodchuck briefly, and I'm sure when the foliage returns there'll be more critters to spot. But today I mostly had to be content with active birds. I spotted several brilliant cardinals and the fattest Robin I've ever seen (pigeon sized). But despite the small size, they (park service) seem to be doing a good job to eco-manage these habitats. It will be interesting to return in a few months to see the difference foliage makes.

Today's hike was a good, albeit short, cobweb cleaner for my head. Although not visually appealing (I don't think I've seen so much brown and gray all at once), the temperature was conducive for hiking and gratefully, no wind! The bareness of everything made me think about hiking post-winter before spring has a chance to make her grand entrance. In fact, I only found a couple of places where green ground cover was beginning to appear, and a couple of places where some nice green lichen covered a few logs. Other than that, one could enjoy the range of colors, so long as that included any tone between brown and gray!

The other starkness about a pre-spring forest, particularly one like this with no evergreens at all, is that the forest appears dead. While I noticed an above average amount of rotted and fallen trees (no doubt the same amount that's always there, just less obvious with a green canopy above), it was easy to wonder whether the forest would come back. Think about the early settlers, used to the evergreen-ness of the northeast, who lived through their first winter and had to wonder if all the vegetation in the forest had died! Had to be a strange event, seeing all those leafless trees looking identical to the dead branches and fallen trunks.

And speaking of trunks, did you know that a rare, prehistoric bird skeleton exists in this small preserve in Northwest Ohio? Neither did I. Actually, on all my hikes I like to look for tree oddities, and the two pictured here are pretty good spoils of that game. The bent trunk at right is very unusual in it's preciseness of right angles, and of course, the fallen trunk below does look like a dinosaur fossil that should be mounted in a museum somewhere. At least these two sights broke the brown-grey monotony a little bit. If I can't find critters to watch, then the natural art of Mother Nature is the next best thing. Usually I'm content with the odd fungi or two, but it's nice to have some interesting tree shapes to look at occassionally.

I'll return to Oakwoods later in the spring and update on the changes. Hopefully I'll then be hiking through a veritable green explosion of life, with a scattering of wild flowers to tint the scene.

Today's hike was not much more than a good excuse to stretch the legs and start working towards getting ready for some serious Spring hiking. Lori and I decided to hike the horse trails out at Litzenburg Memorial Woods, about 15 minutes west of Findlay, Ohio. I'd walked the wooded short-trails behind the historical house, but hadn't walked the extended horse trails across the highway. I tried last fall, but since deer season had just begun, the posted hunting season signs convinced me I should wait until a safer time.

Hiking around Findlay is dismal, to be kind. Just not much to choose from and nothing of much distance unless you count the 4-1/2 mile gravel access road that rings the town's reservoir. What's left are a couple of short wooded hikes that merely whet the appetite but do little to get my Winter legs into shape. But, you hike where you can when you have the time, so on this particular Sunday we found ourselves tromping the soft muddy bridal paths hoping to make an interesting walk out of what seemed to be a somewhat boring route. So much for premonition.

As you can see on the map at the right, the West-side path include fording a small creek. Normally, that's not an issue, but we've had some rain and snow the past few weeks and everything was a bit muddy. We walked down a bit from the obvious crossing, the water being a bit deep to wade through, and even past the fallen tree where others had likely crossed. It seemed too narrow and we were a bit concerned about slipping off, so on we went another 10 yards or so to a point where the creek seemed to narrow and the banks' slopes not so great.

As I got near the water's edge, to my dismay I learned to late how slick the mud was and suddenly all I saw was sky! And damn, that water was COLD! As soon as I hit the water I hunched up to get my butt out of that cold water and Lori thought I'd hurt my back. In leaning over to help me get up, she then slipped and down she came, although somehow she managed to miss the water and only get a little muddy. Me? I wasn't so lucky. I'm still cleaning the leather jacket I was wearing two days later! (Picture provided by Lori of HoardedOrdinaries.com.)

We managed to continue the hike and although cold and damp, I had enough clothes on my upper body to compensate for the cold lower body, and we finished the hike in the sun. Back at the car I had to do some careful placement of my leather coat on the car seat (clean side down while I sat on the muddy back...but then, my jeans were muddy anyway!).

As usual, all worked out okay. I did, to my delight, discover that my new hikers (Asolos) are waterproof and never experienced any dampness in my socks. As any hiker knows, you can survive a lot of such dunkings so long as your socks stay dry.

Next time I go out to Litzenburg it'll be Spring and I'll be able to walk the hilly woods behind the old barn. Again, not a long hike but a pretty "away from it all" sort of saunter. And when I find some longer weekends to work with, I'll be off to explore Southern Ohio hikes such as Hocking Hills. When I do, I'll update HikeThru with new thoughts and hopefully, tasty pictures.

It's been at least two months since I've walked the quiet trails of the Mercer Arboretum, but this morning I was able to get in a nice hike in before the monsoon hit...a very welcome event around here. We seem to be in a draught of sorts, and I was surprised to see one of my favorite spots, the Cypress Bog, nearly bone dry (see below). That combined with more vegetation overhanging the crushed-granite trails through the wilderness side of the arboretum made me realize how places change when we don't visit them frequently. The changes were almost enough to make me feel as though I was walking in a new place, when in fact I've strolled these paths nearly a dozen times over the last six months.

You can see the last vestige of water at the right. When I last visited, the decks on the left were lording over the fishes and turtles that swam reverently beneath the treated deck boards.

Distracting myself from the record-breaking South Texas power outage yesterday, I repeated the urban hike I'd made here, hoping to catch sight of the pair of pileated woodpeckers I'd seen on that hike. It was nearing dusk, so a good time to catch such things in the woods. I wasn't that lucky, but I did manage to catch sight of a red-headed woodpecker, my first sighting of this colorful woodpecker type, and enjoyed watching him work around a pine tree on the golf fairway that parallels this particular paved trail. He moved between two trees (thus the lighting difference in the shots...the bottom shot had full exposure to the setting sun while the top one was on the shaded side of the up-sun tree) doing his feeding and seemed oblivious to anything else around him. When he finally flew off, I got a good eyeful of his flight pattern. Woodpeckers are interesting to watch, even when flying away!

The rest of the hike went without interesting distractions except for when I got ready to turn around at the bridge overpass and begin the hike back to a hopefully energy-happy home. I spotted this old turtle moving in the grass by the open path, and from the debris and algae on his shell, seemed obvious he'd been around a while. He wasn't too happy to see me judging from the mock hissing and retreat into his shell as I postured for a a good shot. I left him alone and walked to the top of the overpass, then back to where he'd been, thinking I'd get another shot. I wasn't gone more than three or four minutes, but that was apparently enough for a turtle with a purpose, and he was gone. Surprised that he would have been able to move out of the open space that fast, I looked around in the brush nearby but never found him. Guess even turtles can pick it up and move it out when bothered by something that looks big enough to eat them!

This hike also marked the first longish hike in my new Asolo boots, fresh from a pre-trip visit to REI in Houston. As much as I hate shoe buying, selecting the right hiking boots was critical to help keep the shock minimized to my back. My effort paid off and the boots worked well, although it will take another 4 or 5 longish hikes to break them in properly.

Another new piece of gear made its debut on this hike: an EMS hiking staff with camera mount threads under the cork handle top. I've read about how trekking poles/staffs can help knee shock going downhill, as well as the usual bennies of having a "stick" in hand. I'm now hooked on using this collapsable staff on hikes. Not only did it help stability, but using the camera mount to help stablize the digicam for low-light shots was great. And having something non-flesh to "poke" at mysterious objects is comforting as well!

Considering this was my first hike longer than an hour or more than 2+ miles in over two years, I did pretty well. It's hilly in New Hampshire and I found out quickly why they call it the Granite State. Rocks are as ubiquitous as the damn insects, which could be minimized by constantly moving, whereas the rocks have to be dealt with whether standing or walking. But for someone used to hiking the flat, dry forests around Houston, the hilly paths and mountain streams and waterfalls were a delight.

While there was nothing unusual to the walk (other than it was bloody hot), I had three exemplary wildlife sightings that I'll probably not equal for a long time.

First, while walking on the long path by the golf course, and heading west into the setting sun, I spotted what I at first thought was a runty dog ahead about 40 yards. I stopped and watched, then recognizing the tail and ears, realized I was looking at a red fox! He (or she) hesitated, then darted into the cover between the golf course and path. While foxes aren't rare around The Woodlands, they are seldom seen. In my 15 years living here, this was only the third one I've seen.

About 20 minutes later, along a heavily wooded section of the path as it approaches the Grogan's Point overpass, I nearly walked by a large cottontail munching grass not 10 feet off the path. I stopped, he stopped, we both stared, then we each went on with our business.

But the best was about to happen. A little further along the same path, two large birds rustled and took flight about eight feet off the path from a large pine. I had just a few seconds to recognize the distinctive birds: pileateds! And not one, but TWO woodpeckers...likely a mating pair. I nearly stopped breathing in my excitement, but had enough presence of mind to freeze and try to see where they landed. I was able to quietly walk about 20 feet more on the path and stood as still as I could, watching them bob around the trunk of a large pine for about 10 seconds, then I watched for another four or five seconds as they flew off perpendicularly away from me down an open draw. Wow. I've seen these majestic birds a few times for a few, precious seconds, but never a pair and NEVER for this long or close. I wish I had the camera ready to fire!

At least I know I can get my Starbucks fix if my son is off somewhere with the car! Survival tidbit, for sure.