Let's back up and talk about the morning. We knew we would be hiking in rain all day. We chose to walk anyway because it was going to be warm, and taking a day off seemed unnecessary. We began in light rain, and the little streams were beginning to run, but nothing serious.
Olney Run, now below us, was attractive enough I snapped its picture.
The rain started coming down harder (much harder), and when we reached Richard's car at 11:30 we climbed in to eat an early lunch. As Denali and I were getting ready to hike again, Richard said, "I think I'll just drive ahead and check on a couple of road fords you will need to cross.
What's a road ford? It's a low concrete culvert that the water usually flows through, but if the water rises, it just flows over the top. We had just crossed one before I took the pictures of Olney Run above. That one looked like this.
Before we had hiked a mile, Richard was back to report that we'd never get across the fords now. He wasn't even willing to drive over them, and he has quite a lot of experience at this activity.
So, it turns out that all three fords are very close together- only about 0.5 mile total distance between the first and the last, but there is no reasonably distanced road walk to get around them. Richard picked us up and took us by car around to the far side of the third one where we were able to continue our hike on the road. That water was flowing really fast. Without his help, we would have had to hike miles out of the way. Carl was off to Marietta doing some shopping for us, so he would not have been able to get back to us in time to be much help.
We are so grateful that Richard knows every inch of this trail, and he realized those fords should be checked before he turned us loose. He said he'd never seen the water that high there.
By later in the afternoon when Carl picked us up to end our hiking day, the creeks looked like rivers. In the distance is Onion Run, with a "small" creek flowing into it from the front left. They weren't quite out of their banks, but an inch of rain on the hills can result in serious water in the valleys.
I'll end this wet day with a picture from yesterday- Todd T. Toad and me, with the Muskingum River in the background.
Todd chose not to hike in the rain today. Strange behavior for a toad, don't you think?
Miles today: 16.1. Total miles so far: 1070
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3 comments:
Lulu: "Yeah, that road ford looks pretty much like a river!"
Good thing you had Richard there. Is there a story behind Todd T. Toad that I missed somewhere?
Lulu- identical!
Ann- not really. Someone purchased him and started collecting pins from various trails that he wears on his necktie. He doesn't wear the tie with all the pins to the woods.
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