Excited today to hike with some of Wendy’s friends from Hiram! We met up with Gwen, Ugur and Charmaine at the Fairview cemetery on Ryder Rd to begin. Sunny day, new friends to talk with, rolling fields with classic farm on top of a hill- great start! Gwen left us at the farm but we were quickly joined by RoxieAnn and her dog Jazz as we entered Pioneer trail into Camp Asbury. Slip-slided our way over soggy trails and came across a small group of simple cabins. Was nice to walk through the woods again and it was peaceful except for the chatter of Wendy and her friends. As we emerged from the woods we came across many trees that were collecting maple syrup. We said goodbye to our new friends at Asbury Rd (afternoon naps being mentioned as a looming possibility) and continued on through the fields of the camp and took a snack break at the pond. The trail ducked off into the woods, went down into a boggy lowland and we reached our first truly insurmountable obstacle ever on the BT- a vastly overflowing creek where we couldn’t even reach the bridge! We went back up a ridge and walked downstream until we came to another smaller bridge across the stream- the water was right up to its top boards, and the water was about 5 ft deep in the middle, but it was passable and not too wet on the boggy trail afterwards. This little adventure cost us about 30 min, but we found our way back to the BT and hiked on until we reached the Headwaters trail; basically another paved or crushed limestone multi-use trail. Remarkably, we walked past another couple that Wendy knew from Hiram, stopped to chat and catch-up, and then finished up after a long walk, spilling out onto a side road into Mantua.
