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Went to my (gulp) 40-year high school reunion this weekend in not-so-lovely Youngstown, Ohio. Sunday morning, I decided to relive my youth and take a long walk through Mill Creek Park.

MCP is to Youngstown what Central park is to New York City. As Youngstown and the surrounding communities grew over the years, Mill Creek was a swath of beauty that covers (I'm guessing) a couple thousand acres right smack dab through the middle of it all.

Some of the trails are too well developed for my liking, bike paths instead of hiking trails, but the enormous number of trails for a city park often plunge into the woods, and the woods walks are as pretty as you'll find in Ohio. The trails also pass along Mill Creek itself, which is surprisingly pretty and unpolluted for a rust-belt city like Y'town.

The acres also include a very nice golf course that dates back to the early 20th century. The Old Mill, which dates back long before the golf course, has been substantially restored, and is definitely worth a look.

The Nature Center has been substantially improved since my youth, when the main feature was a stuffed, two-headed calf, various animal organs in formaldehyde, and a bunch of snake bones. It epitomized the small, rural museum, and yet it was in the middle of a then-thriving steel town. Now, it looks much snazzier, but it has lost a bit of its charm.

Anyway, MCP is worth a dayhike at least. 50 Hikes, I just noticed, describes an easy, 6.4-mile walk that takes you past all the main features and into the woods and along Mill Creek, as well.

Onward to Dolly Sods!

Stargazer

Do they still have the wild cave tour? Great experience crawling on your belly with a face full of bat guano through very tight tunnels. Seriously. Fun time. My headlamp went out during one of the belly crawls and I experienced true darkness, a first for me at the time.

In fact, there are a ton of surface trails -- very nice and not very well traveled since folks are there for other purposes.

Stargazer

   My wife and I are leaving tomorrow afternoon for Mammoth Cave.  We will be canoeing about 22 miles on Saturday and Sunday.  On sunday afternoon and Monday we are checking out some of the cave tours they have open to the public.  Kind of a change from the norm of backpacking for us, but I am looking forward to it for sure.  My wife and I cave a lot in Kentucky, leading most trips myself, so I'm not sure how much we will enjoy the guided tours they have.  I am used to seeing a hole and pushing it to see where ,and if, it goes and learning a cave system by basically getting lost and them finding my way out.  Definently a stratigity that would be frowned on by the "pro's". We will see though.  I'll sent out a TR when we return.
       Schnikel
 

Yea, it was weird that I couldn't check out the site.  It was a bummer,but I'm glad its back up now.  It's odd how yoou get used to checkin' out certain sites almost daily, huh?  Yea its an addiction but a da*n good one IMHO.
      Schnikel

Glad to have my favorite board back!

Stargazer

I apologize for the forum outage. This time it was out of my hands . . . really, it was.
It looks like a couple of days of postings were lost, but all else seems to be intact.

Just wanted to let everyone know that the Eddie Bauer warehouse is having a HUGE sale on all items including their !st accent gear.  This is their top of the line clothing they made and used on a Mt. Everst climb.  Though it might be over kill in ohio, the deals are amazing like 45 bucks for a 850 fill down jacket etc... 
   My wife and I went and spent $150 on stuff and when I looked at the receit the price before sale was over $450!!  I got a good day pack for $21 and a pair of spf 50 pants for $12. 
  Just thought I'd pass along the info.
 Schnikel

Back from my second try at Stone Church. I managed to walk every inch of it, with the exception of a couple of short side trails -- about 22 miles including some "I'm lost" backtracks.

Great trail, with a lot of piney woods and few blowdown impediments. Besides the old trailhead, there's but one developed camping site for hikers, and it's just a couple of miles in. If you don't mind tall grass, there are several meadowy areas along the way, however.

All in all, I love the place. For solitude, it can't be beat. The only time I ran into other humans, I was at or near the trailhead.

This can be a problem, however. The trailhead (the old one) is more popular for the horse set than the new one, which is actually designed for horses. I got back to the trailhead Saturday afternoon at about 5 PM and found it a bit over-parked with horse trailers, horses, and dogs off leash. One of the dogs was aggressive enough that I decided not to camp there. A quick drive to the new horse trailhead found it totally empty, but a less-than-perfect place to set up a tent. The "old" trailhead really is designed for non-horse hikers, but the horse folks don't seem to like their really developed and expensive trailhead for some reason.

It was only 6 PM by then, so I decided to drive home, forgoing a bea-you-tee-ful night to camp out. Sigh.

Great hike, though. Next time, I'll camp in one of the meadows.

Adding a point: What this trail needs is a good set of hi-res maps. The online version isn't adequate because of some complex old-road interactions hat don't show up because of the low-res nature of the maps (couldn't even read the road numbers on my printout). I figured it all out eventually but not without some trouble.

One point I never quite got: Apparently, there's North Country Trail trailhead somewhere. Never found it. In fact, the "North Country Trail Trailhead" title on the map erased an important intersection!

Stargazer

No problem. That's a bad location to sustain a serious injury. If you did, I'd probably just pilfer your gear and leave you for the bears.

 

No problem, BPO. Feel free. That's yet another reason to go ultralight. As my granny used to say, "If ya ain't got nutin', ya ain't got nutin' to lose."

Stargazer

What is believed to be a Fisher Cat is currently being heard in Carroll/Tusc. county areas. They say the screaming like sound is like that of a women being murdered in the woods. Very disturbing if you don't know what it is. Anyone heard anything on the trail they can't ID? This may be the answer. All I know is that the ODNR was contacted by someone I know in the area and is currently trying to determine whether or not Fisher Cats have migrated to the area. I'm not sure about anywhere else in the state. Maybe you more regular hikers can clear that up.

doc