Shawnee State Forest - Thursday

Andrew Irwin, Rich Wathen, and I went on a 40 mile backpacking trip in Shawnee State Forest, near Portsmouth, OH. It was about 3.5 hours from our place. Here are the three of us getting ready to leave. (Photo from Rich Wathen)

We left Thursday morning and drove through a downpour. It rained about 2.5 inches Thursday. This is the start of the hike. You can see the water just rushing down the trail. This was typical. It didn't rain all day, but we had our ponchos on most all day.
Whenever the trail came near a creek, it would cross the creek many times. All the creeks were over the banks. We had a fun challenge to try to get across. It is much harder to jump with a pack on.

Crossing a creek. (Photo from Andrew Irwin)

The soggy trail.

There were many long climbs. (Photo from Andrew Irwin)

They call the park, the "little smokies". You can see the mist in this picture.

Another tricky creek crossing.

The beech leaves in the valley.

We did 12 miles on Thursday. It wasn't raining when we got to camp, but it very shortly started. We couldn't get a fire started in the rain and we all slept in the tent. We had dehydrated meals that took boiling water, so we ended up eating them with cold water. I slept pretty well. Here you can see our attempt to start a fire in the rain. (Photo from Rich Wathen)