This trip came together at the last minute. I was wanting to get out on the trail and stretch my legs. It had been a long winter and I was feeling a little closed in and heavy from all that holiday food, I could hear the trail beckoning to me. I arranged with a friend, Allison, to pick me up at the little town of Lockington, Ohio and drive me back to my apartment where we would start the hike. That Friday I was chatting with a classmate about the hike and he expressed some interest. We were now three. Derrick met Allison and I at my place at about 0800, and, after a bit of repacking, were on the trail by about 0830. The three of were all at different levels of experience, but we all started off on the same foot.
The trail de jour was the norther third of the Troy section of the Buckeye Trail (BT). I have been reading a lot about the BT in the last couple of months and was excited to learn that the sleepy little town I had moved to for school sat right on the trail. There will be more on the trail later, but the basics go like this; The BT wraps around the state of Ohio in a big loop about 1450 miles long, touching all four corners of the state.
This part of the BT consists of the Greater Miami Recreational Bike path, a wonderfully paved path that winds north from South of Dayton all the way up past Piqua. It's path for a good part of today's hike shadows I-75 and I was pleasantly surprised that you really can't hear it through most of the hike. Most of the road crossings were easy enough to follow, with one notable exception, the Eldean Bridge. The Eldean Bridge, built in 1860, is one of the longest covered bridges in not only Ohio, but the nation at 224ft. The bridge is situated on the South side of Eldean Rd, opposite the park, where the trail picks back up after crossing US-25 (mildly annoying, but the bridge was so nice we crossed it twice).
We made it into Pigua around 1200 and took a short break before heading into the town proper. There is a nice little overlook just South of town near an old red brick building (looked like a factory of some sort). Piqua is one of four "Trail Towns" along the BT (coincidentally all are in Southwestern Ohio) and the folks there were friendly. I was expecting more odd looks from people as I was carrying my full pack, but I think Piqua has gotten used to seeing the packs. We chose to leave the trail and walk down Main St. where we came across Mulligan's, a golf themed pub but the grub was very good. I chose the Chicken and rice option, better than the trail rations I had packed. We cooled our heels for about an hour while we ate and digested, enjoying the company and conversation.
I have to admit at this time that after Allison falling a couple of times on the ice, (there was plenty of ice for us all) and Derrick nearly going down a time or two, it was me, solid as a rock Will, that got hurt. I wore my work boots, Carharts, which are clearly not for hiking but I figured they would do better than an old pair of tennis shoes. Before we stopped in Piqua I had developed hotspots on the balls of both feet and was walking to compensate. This is what I believe did me in, at some point I rolled my ankle and the nice long break gave it the time needed to become painful when I put pressure on it. Lesson learned, wear the right boots, and should you get a hotspot/blister do not change your stride to compensate.
After lunch, we hit the road again. It was here that we inadvertently left the BT. The trail cuts further through town and out on the bike path, but we crossed the river on the bridge at Main St. and turned left on Piqua-Lockington Rd. From this point on we were on the side of the road. The trail said fairly level the whole way north to this point, we began to get little rises as the road pulled away from and dove back at the river. Just before we crossed the river again, we began seeing the Blue Blazes of the BT, it's path jogs back over to where we were to head into Lockington, we had skipped about two miles of the trail, just to have it come meet us, sounds like the nicest trail ever, you get lost and it finds you!
Across the river, the little rises became little hills. All told, I believe that the total elevation gain on the hike was around 150 ft over the 15 miles. The last uphill part of the road lead us straight into town, there is a sign at the top of that hill declaring that you were now in Lockington proper (photo to be added later). After a brief attempt at a group selfie (I am rubbish at selfies of any size) we marched up the hill to the little park at the center of town. To be fair, Lockington is not a metropolis, it has a fire station and a park, the rest of the three roads in town are houses. But we had made it back to the truck, alive, if a little sore.
No comments:
Post a Comment