Ohio Ways
From: Back to Nature
A few ruins and restless spirits are all that remain of Zaleski Forest’s industrial past
One hundred and thirty years ago, a recreational hike through what is now Zaleski State Forest would’ve been an unquiet tour of Ohio’s early industry. Locomotives whistled and chugged from settlement to settlement, wagon wheels creaked and thumped along dirt roads, great iron smelting furnaces roared, and axes whacked at timber for fuel and building material.
Today, nearly everything that was built, right down to the railroad’s ties and tracks, is gone. The small settlement of Ingham Station vanished years ago. All that’s left of Moonville is the nearby B&O tunnel. The settlement of Hope has all but disappeared not once but twice, first as Hope, and then, after the furnace was shut down, as Hope Station a short distance away.
No wonder that the forest, once home to so many, is rumored to be haunted by ghosts.
From: Shawnee Country
Snap! In the thick forest behind you someone steps on a twig. You’re on your own, deep in the hills of what will become, in a couple hundred years, southern Ohio’s Shawnee State Forest. In the instant before you begin to run, you wonder who’s there. French? British? Iroquois? They all claim the land, and still more people, Delaware, Wyandot, Mingo, and Shawnee, are being pushed into the territory by the westward expansion of American Colonists. The more people are settling the land, the more unsettled it’s becoming. Which is why you run. Someone moving stealthily through the forest behind you means trouble, no matter who you are.
R-a-a-a-attle! Today, the most dangerous sound you might hear in the park is the warning of a Timber Rattler that you’ve trodden too near—that is, if you can hear anything over the sound of your own huffing and puffing. This portion of the unglaciated Appalachian Plateau, known as the Shawnee-Mississippian, is characterized by high ridges and deeply eroded valleys, or what Geologist call high relief, highly dissected. After hiking through the southern portion, I prefer to call it just plain rugged. Relief (ironically having nothing to do with the sense of “lessening of, or freeing from, a pain, burden difficulty, etc.”) in this area can range from 400’ to 800’, which, of course, creates steep climbs and descents. There are several climbs on the trail exceeding 50% slopes over distances of 160’ or more (think of climbing staircases 160’ or longer). During inclement weather the trail’s extremes can become downright treacherous. It’s easy to imagine Shawnee warriors keeping an eye on encroaching settlers, safe from molestation in this rugged, unprofitable landscape.
Other Places We’ve Been
From: How Big is Heaven
Hikers on Isle Royale Can Tell You
Native Americans told early explorers of a place in Lake Superior that rose skyward with the sunrise. They called it Menong. The explorers called it Isle Royale. We who have been there call it heaven
From the perspective of a boat’s deck, the Native Americans were right. The island does rise higher and higher above the water. By the third hour aboard our ferry its dense green forest and tall dark rock loomed large on the horizon like a massive chunk of backcountry Promised Land, or, if not the Promised Land, the only visible land in any direction.
Other Articles
From: The Trouble with Going Solo
Murphy’s Law: If anything can go wrong, it will. Murphy’s Law with an addendum for the outdoorsman: If anything can go wrong, it will when you are by yourself.