Ohio River Islands Upland Trail

Cool Guy and I did the Upland Trail of Ohio River Islands Wildlife Refuge on Feb. 15.  It was cold and spitting snow.

The trail began straight up and wound through the hills in the area.  One big difference between this trail and the riverside one was that this trail was much more primitive.  Actually, I enjoyed it more.  It was almost exclusively a woods trail.  Not much of a view to speak of, no big water interest, just woods.  But they were pretty woods, even in the winter.  We crossed several small ravines and had several nice woodsy scenes.  There wasn't a lot of up and down after the first up, just a lot of meandering until it was time to come down.

The trail was well-blazed, and a really nice perk was that several trees were identified for us.  I especially remember the Virginia Pine, and I think I could identify that myself now.  Cool Guy was most impressed with the poison ivy vine (id'd) that was a thick around as my wrist.  Glad it was winter.  We don't like poison ivy.

The trail was about a mile in length, with a shorter loop or figure 8 option that we didn't take.  Next time....

Kanawha State Forest, Overlook Rock Trail

Cool Guy and I went to Kanawha State Forest for the first time Feb. 7.  For a nice change, the weather was clear and warmish, after a couple of weeks of overcast skies, rain and snow.  I chose Overlook Rock Trail because it immediately involved climbing, and I figured that getting up might get us away from snow run-off.

Finding Kanawha State Forest was very easy.  I forget how easy it is to get around in Charleston.  After taking the correct exit, I only needed to follow the signs for 6 miles.  Easy peasy.

Once we got to the forest, I checked in at the station to get our VIPP cards stamped, and the ranger was very helpful to us, recommending the best way to hike the Overlook Rock loop.  We began with the hard climbing and then at the end of the hike, we got our reward in the form of a fantastic view on a large rock.

But I'll start from the beginning.  The trail was extremely well-blazed, and the trail, though narrow, was clear and easy to follow, even with leaves all over the ground.  We began by going up, up, up, though none of it involved scrambling over anything.  Just steady upward movement.  Finally at the ridge top, we had pretty level walking.  At the top, it was evident that the forest suffered quite a bit from the storm damage of last summer.  There were trees down everywhere, though none obscuring or blocking the trail.  One thing I noticed at ridge top was that thorn brambles grew thick right to the edge of the trail.  I imagine that they only get worse as the spring and summer come along, so I was glad that we were hiking this one in winter.

There were so many beautiful sights: large moss-covered rocks, little streams babbling, trees, views.  And then we came to the rock.  It was huge and gave us the most fantastic view of the hills and valleys all around.  It was hard to believe that we were in Charleston.

After having our lunch on the rock, we trekked on, almost immediately heading down.  The hike down was easy, not too steep at all.  One interesting part was that when we got to the bottom, our trail took us right up next to a stream, and with the snow melt, often the stream was in the path.  We crossed back and forth over it a few times.  We saw a few small waterfalls tumbling over rocks.  I don't know, but I'm guessing that in drier weather, these little runs are missing.

This was a short hike, on 1.5 miles, but it had everything: climb, view, water interest.

We were the only ones there.  It was so quiet and peaceful.  Definitely going again.