I took the first steps on my hopefully long and successful adventure to hike the Buckeye Trail around Ohio. Four those that aren't familiar, and I was among them until fairly recently, the Buckeye loops around Ohio, touching the four corners of the state. It's unique among trails, as I believe it's the only state-long trail that runs in a loop, or more technically, two loops. There's the big loop that circles the whole state, and the "little loop" where the trail splits south of Akron and takes an eastern and western path and meets up at Lake Erie.
My first hike started where the trail splits in Massilon, Ohio. I'm starting by taking the more eastern path to the lake. I've bought the 5 sectional maps the make up the little loop. Each section map describes the trail, is about 50 miles long and divides the the section into 20-25 smaller parts to make navigation easier. My goal is to do about ten miles at a time.
Today's hike went well. The way it worked out, I ended up hiking 11 miles in about 3.5 hours. I managed to keep a pretty good pace, as it was a fairly level hike and almost entirely on roads. I prefer trails, and most of the Buckeye Trail is off-road, but it does run through several (sub)urban areas and this is one of those cases. I was hiking before 7:30 on mostly rural roads, so traffic didn't become an issue until near the end of the hike.
I was worried about the length, not having done this distance in a really long time, but managed pretty well. I became leg weary around mile 5, but it didn't get appreciable worse as the hike went longer. I anticipate I'll be sore tomorrow, and that may well have to do as much with walking on asphalt as the distance.
Hoping to do the next section in a week, and until next time...
