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Great Day Hikes: Long Run Segment of |
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Great Day Hikes: Long Run Segment of |
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Length: 3.2 miles one-way, 6.4 miles there and back (linear, not loop)
Difficulty: Moderate, with some difficult stretches
Start: Fox Hunter Road, the only side road off Antle Orchard Road (County Road 87), which is off OH-13 north of Glouster, Ohio, north of Buckingham Coal, but before Tom Jenkins Dam
On this trail, you can easily believe for a while that you're deep, deep in the wilderness.
This hike is on a trailway that is common to three major trails: the Buckeye Trail, which loops around the entire state of Ohio; the North Country Trail, a National Scenic Trail that extends from Lake Champlain in New York State into North Dakota; and the American Discovery Trail, a transcontinental trail from Delaware to California. They happen to all coincide in our area. Check the bottom of this page for websites.
To get there, go north out of Glouster, Ohio, on State Route 13, go past Buckingham Coal, then look for Antle Orchard Road, which also is Athens County Road 87, on the left. Take it up to the top of the ridge, pass a cluster of houses, then look for another narrow road on the right just past a small house. This is Fox Hunter Road, a Trimble Township road. Take it to its end, and you can park in a small area on the right.
Start on the trail, which is on the old roadway, and you'll find it to be obvious. The trail has some serious mud pits in this stretch, so be careful, and it quickly forks. Stay to the right. You're now in the Wayne National Forest, and will stay in the Forest most of the way to the end.
You'll be walking the ridge top for some distance. Eventually, you'll come to a fence with stiles. This is a small corner of private property crossed by the trail. Climb the stiles, then the second set, and you'll be back in Wayne National Forest.
Just after this, you'll turn right, continue on the ridge top for a short distance, then start down an old road grade to the right. This is an especially beautiful stretch of trail. You'll pass a trail log station (that is, a box with a book in it where you can make trail comments and read other people s comments) on the way down. Most of the way down into the valley, you'll leave the old road grade and start on new trail. You'll eventually come all the way into the bottom, where a small side stream comes in from the left, and here you'll turn right and cross the stream. The name of the stream is Long Run. You'll then climb back up the ridge on the far side, on a steep climb. At the top, you'll bear left on a ridgetop road grade.
Walk this ridgetop for a while and then the trail will bear to the right onto a side ridge. Be careful or you may walk into a barbed-wire fence at one point. This fence is the boundary of the Wayne, and also the county line between Athens County (which you're in) and Perry County, to the north.
From here, for a while, the trail will kind of wander, unfinished, on the hillside. Then you'll come to the stream at the bottom, which has no known name, at a nice small intermittent waterfall and rock trough stream bed. Crossing the creek, you'll begin on new trail on the far side that's very nicely done. After coming to the mouth of the small stream valley, you'll start paralleling a much larger stream called Sunday Creek. This stream got its name from early explorers who were making their way up the Hocking River. They came to the outflow of this creek at the river on Sunday, and so called it Sunday Creek. There is also a Monday Creek just upriver that they reached the next day.
You'll walk downstream along Sunday Creek for a while, and then come to another stream crossing with a small cave and outcrops. Just before this stream, if you go to your left towards Sunday Creek and walk down an old road grade to the bottom, look farther to your left and you'll find an old coal mine shaft filled with water.
Crossing the small stream on the Buckeye Trail, you'll then come to yet another stream that you'll cross, then you'll shortly come to the railroad tracks of the CSX line. You'll have to climb up to the tracks to cross them, then cross the small drainage valley and climb up to Ohio State Route 13. Just across the road is Tom Jenkins Dam, which impounds Burr Oak Lake. The Army Corps of Engineers administers the dam area, with a public campground on a separate road off 13 just north of the dam. Most of the lake, however, is within Burr Oak State Park. If you prefer, you can park a vehicle in the dam parking lot, up the driveway, or you can start from this end instead, or you can just walk up there to take a look before walking back.
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