Con - sarn it!!!

I tried to go for another weekend camping adventure. As you can probably guess, it was not quite a success. I've encountered the third location that was "full" and unavailable for backpacking!!

I still have a difficult time accepting this. In my outdoors experiences in states West of the Mississippi, in National Forest country, there are lots of little gravel roads that lead like little capillaries into the heart of the forest. Sometimes, there are campsites scattered within; other times, trailheads. In any case, if you find yourself exploring one of these little roads, you - as a single owner representative of Public Lands - can strike off on the trail or pitch a tent. Even in Texas, in the State Forests, the same holds true.

Not so in Ohio! I visited Mohican Memorial State Forest. I'm not sure what the 'memorial' is for - perhaps obliteration of the Mohicans? Their western-most lands were in present-day Vermont. There is a memorial shrine in the forest dedicated to Ohioans who lost their lives in wars from WWII onward.

Here are some differences in the way Ohio manages its State Forest: it closes at 11 pm. Yes, that's right - with actual gates that are closed on the roads. There are trailheads that close at dusk (whatever you may interpret that to mean), with their own sets of crossroad gates. It has trails that you can walk, bike, or weather permitting, snowmobile - but they are marked with signs indicating that you must stay on the trails. So, I suppose, if you're snowshoeing on the trails and a flock of snowmobiles roars forth, you're SOL.

On the plus side, it is located in beautiful rolling hills and heavily treed. The trees were putting on their fall colors in beautiful arrays - the forest had the most reds I've seen (but probably only about 10% of the color observed was reds). It has a lodge and a resort with associated campgrounds, which were all literally overflowing with people and tents. Who wants to camp like that? Maybe that's all these eastern midwesterners know, but I find it almost repulsive to pitch a tent 5 foot away from someone else's tent unless we're at something like Burning Man. There are also natural gas transmission lines throughout the forest, which to forest management's credit, are well tucked away from the trail structure.

So, it was with a bit of a sigh that, after driving and hiking and exploring this region, I decided to come home. It's only about a 2 hour drive, and wasn't worth hoteling to explore the next day, because I'd been able to walk the trails in one shot. Besides, it was going to get down to the upper 30s, so I could take a soak in the giant tub and light a fire. Which is just about as fun as camping anyway. And, I've not been home for a weekend since August, so there is a whole lot that I needed to catch up on. At least, this way, I was able to make a dent in my ever-growing list of Things to Do and still enjoy some time outside.