Buckeye Trail Completion, Day 3

 

Day three, Sunday April 23, was sunny but not hot. Our campsite was positioned perfectly along the trail, so we only had to drive a car to our starting location and walk back to camp. And then go retrieve the other car, of course.

We see a lot of the tiger swallowtails on our hikes, but they are always good for a picture. The scourge of the hike was autumn olive, in full bloom, but the butterfly seems to like it.



I know Ohio is the Buckeye State, and we did see plenty of buckeye trees, but sycamore also says Ohio to me. Here's a beauty.



Our early miles took us over a ridge with more of those great farm country views.



And the residents of the farms are always good for some fun. The sheep watched us with interest.



But the goats were more curious, although they didn't think we were interesting enough to stand up for. We thought this trio was especially funny. It would need a video, but the two goats that make bookends hardly moved a muscle. The one behind bars kept poking her head in and out and definitely wanting to escape. Just after I took the picture, another one, a color match for the two lying down peeked around the corner of the shed.



Horses are almost always curious about us.



After these 2.5 road miles, we entered AEP land (the reclaimed mining lands). There are 26 continuous miles of off-road foot trail here, quite a long stretch for the Buckeye Trail. Most off-road sections are multi-use, and often paved. It was nice to have so many miles in the woods.



We reached our campsite at 3 pm, and did some hill driving on the way to get the other car. The view from the top of Cobb Hill Road was impressive, and I put two pictures into a panorama. This gives a better sense of what we were seeing while we walked instead of the standard size pictures.



Miles for the day: 9. Total so far this trip: 26.1. Belle Valley, points 26-30.

(Oh yeah, there was the usual piece of missing trail. This time, quite a big piece. A new gas pipeline is being installed and the trail was bulldozed and filled with brush piles. To go around overland required pushing through autumn olive groves. So we went back to an access road and walked out to a real road to rejoin the trail at the bottom of the hill. At least it wasn't long or hard to figure out what to do.)

	See Day 2
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