Sunday May 16th - Mohican State Park - Near Loudonville OH - Trail loop of 11 miles, about 1400 feet elevation gain

 This was an epic long hike.  I had been to this park once, by myself in October of 2019 I think.  I did a beautiful walk from the covered bridge (which is the central part of the trail network for many) to the fire tower and back. This gigantic loop hike from AllTrails however was a huge connect the dots adventure from a big dam, to Lyons Falls, through Hemlock Gorge and a few other park features ending, unexpectedly for us, at the very bottom of the dam with 175 stairs leading back to the top near our parked car.  

The weather was warm but mild and nearly perfect for the entirety of our hike.  There were quite a few cars parked at the various trailhead parking lots but the park was so large and our route so ambitious and spread out that there wasn’t anywhere on the trail that we saw more than maybe 2 families together.  All together we did see enough dogs to fill a medium size dog pound though! It seemed like every couple or family had at least open canine companion with a tail wagging as we passed.

The original loop on AllTrails had us doing a long leg of the hike along the river near the end.  We were almost 100% on route until the point where the trail got to the river. Then after a bit the blazed trail markings that we’d been following for so long departed from the plotted route of whoever uploaded their hike to AllTrails and we ended up climbing a substantial bluff and walking along the top of the very tall ridge looking down at the very distant river instead of walking along whatever trail or the park road was nearer to the water.  Hence the substantial elevation difference between us and AllTrails.

One of things I found out about on this hike that I didn’t know from my prior visit to this park is that in addition to miles of dedicated and mostly family friendly hiking trails, this park also has miles of mountain biking trails.  Our long route included a mile or so of these and it was pretty cool seeing trails that were maintained specifically for mountain bikes.  Also in that area there was an astonishingly steep section of trail.  It was a steep as anything I’ve seen without a ladder or cable and it went from top to bottom of the 2 hundred foot hill or whatever it was on.  Wed didn’t try to photograph it, we were just thankful we got down it without falling down or having to ride down on our butts.  Thankfully we only had to go half way down the hill before turning onto a different trail.

This Mohican State Park is truly a gem in the OH state parks system. The terrain and beauty are so far beyond the average state park of any state and there were lots of structures (stairs, bridges, boardwalk etc) to make the hikes more enjoyable even in the wet season.  While popular it doesn’t seem to have the fame that Hocking Hills does, possibly because other than Mohican State Park itself, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of development for visitors surrounding it compared to Hocking Hills.