Saturday was a beautiful day. It was a little cool at first, but it was bright and clear. We only had 10 miles to the car, and most of the trail was along ridge tops. The creeks were much lower. We saw a turkey and several grouse. We were hearing ruffed grouse drumming during the whole hike. (You can hear the drumming at this Cornell site.) We got back to the car a little after 2:00. 
Friday, we hiked the 18 miles from Camp 2 to Camp 6. See map. The day didn't have a great start, because the rain soaked my clothes that were drying under a tarp. I warmed up to a decent temperature after the first hill. It got pretty nice later in the day, and it didn't rain in the afternoon. Here is a nice hemlock grove we came through. 
Gorgeous hemlocks. (Photo from Andrew Irwin)
A beautiful waterfall through the hemlocks. (Photo from Rich Wathen)
A pretty stream Friday afternoon. (Photo from Andrew Irwin)
This crossing was tricky because the log you had to jump on was slanted, wet, and pretty high up. (I don't know why they cut it in the first place.)
Crossing the creek. (Photo from Andrew Irwin)
Goodyera
Rich
This is a log that Andrew got to know intimately. It was fairly slippery.
We were lucky that there were lots of downed logs for creek crossings. The major creeks were almost uncrossable without a bridge or a long log. We had to detour twice to avoid deeper creeks.
One challenging aspect of all the rain was ascending and descending steep, muddy slopes. Here we are descending a muddy slope. Extreme caution was required.
Camp 6 was one of the prettiest campsites that I have ever stayed at. It was in a hemlock grove and beside two rushing streams. (But still up high enough.) Technically, the camp was across the creek, but this site suited us just fine.
The firewood was still wet from the half inch of rain on Friday, but we still managed to get a fire started. That really made the evening nice. We could cook our meals and just warm up beside it. It was a clear night, so I slept in my hammock. It got below freezing, but I slept pretty well.
Ready for bed. (Photo from Rich Wathen)
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)
There are Easter Bunnies... well, why not Easter Rats!? We thought it would be fun to get some Easter pictures of the girls.
(And she did! Ben and I cracked up laughing when Ashley took off with this egg. She was holding it by the little piece of plastic that kept the egg halves together. She ran off behind the bookshelf, and Aubrey was there to help her open it! Yogurt dips are Aubrey's favorite, so she got the treat in the end.)
Hope you enjoyed the pictures! Happy Easter!
I enjoy seeing Fox Sparrows whenever I can. They have such a cool color pattern of slate grey and rusty brown.
Three wood frogs from Belmont County, OH. The photo is fuzzy, but I was excited to find these guys by a vernal pool. The female is the pinkish frog and the two males on top are darker brown. These guys are pretty cool, they can actually survive freezing. They are early breeders. The pool they were near had spotted salamander eggs in it also.
The Columbus skyline
Monroe County, OH
The Ohio River valley, south of Wheeling, WV
The Barnesville Reservoir, Belmont County, OH
Duncan Falls and the Muskingum River, Muskingum County, OH
Late afternoon of Eastern Ohio
A reason to appreciate car gas prices
Image from "The Mayflower" at www.nathanielphilbrick.com
I just finished The Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick (who also wrote the great book In the Heart of the Sea). While most of the story of the Pilgrims was familiar to me (from the landing up through the first Thanksgiving), the subsequent generations and King Phillips War was not. The author points out that often American mythology jumps across the 150 years from the Pilgrims landing to the War for Independence. Many of the themes seen throughout subsequent American history can be found in the 17th century New England history. Obviously, the majority of the book deals with the settlers relationship with the Indians and Indian tribes. The greed, racism, deceit, hatred, hypocrisy, and violence are heartbreaking. Paradoxically, this history is also about men of great faith and morality. As the book subtly pointed out, the challenge of loving our neighbor was not just an issue for the Pilgrims and Indians, it is an issue ever before us.
