Tag: Buckeye Trail

To the Farthest Points North—Part Three

by guest blogger Bonnie Spencer   Part 1, Part 2 April 25, 2017 CW and I are hiking the Burton section of the Buckeye Trail this week. It begins where we left off at Lake Erie our last trip up and runs south through Painesville, Chardon, and Burton. Since we’re back to hiking by ourselves, we’re also back to driving two cars. The forecast looks as though we’ll have two nice days followed by two days of rain and thunderstorms. Whatever the conditions, we need to knock out a lot of miles in four days …

To the Farthest Points North—Part Two

by guest blogger Bonnie Spencer   Part 1, Part 3 April 11, 2017 This week the trail will take us northwest to Lake Erie as we hike the Bedford section. We have watched the weather forecast for several days. Though most days should be warm enough, basically we are seeing rain throughout the week, with possible snow on Friday. Not what we want to see. CW talked with Bob Morecki, the Bedford section supervisor. He told us there was a section that hikers call Muddy Lane. After our last week up, that should be a …

To the Farthest Points North—Part One

by guest blogger Bonnie Spencer   Part 2, Part 3 March 29, 2017 CW and I scheduled our spring 10-percenter hike to be completed by Buckeye TrailFest at the end of April. That put our first week of hiking back into March. We will do three sections of the Buckeye Trail in northeast Ohio—the points of the BT farthest from our home. Our hike will start from the point where we ended last fall, where three sections come together. For those not familiar with the BT configuration, this is possible on the circular trail because …

Lost but Making Good Time

February 1, 2017 I still feel a little stupid for wandering off the trail on a hike I was on a couple weeks ago. Maybe it will help if I talk about it. I’ll tell you the sad details, make an excuse or two, and hope that by the time I’m done writing I’ll feel vindicated, or at least not quite as dumb. Here goes. I went hiking with my friend George, who is working on completion of a circuit hike of the Buckeye Trail. He had less than 300 miles to go and was …

My Smartphone Education

December 18, 2016 For years I listened as my hiking buddies bragged about their smartphones. But I didn’t care. My antique flip phone did what I wanted it to at the time: call and text people. Besides, if I was careful it could hold a charge for a five-day backpacking trip while my friends scurried for ways to power up almost daily. They shelled out hundreds for their high-tech gadgets, plus more for high monthly service charges, while I spent only 19.99 for my phone and pay about 15 dollars monthly to TracFone. Pretty smart, …

Hiking Without Dad—Part Three

by guest blogger Bonnie Spencer   Part 1, Part 2 November 1, 2016 Day 10: Spencer Wildlife Area to SR 83 south of Litchfield (6.8 trail miles) We were eager to begin the last week of our hike. Our progress the previous two weeks left us with only 45 miles to complete. As always we were hoping for agreeable weather. In addition, we were looking forward to better seasonal color than we’d experienced so far. On our way to the clinic to drop Sugar off for her “vacation,” we stopped at Tim Horton’s to pick …