Great Seal State Park (Part 2)

In October and November of 2020 Joan and I made four trips to Great Seal State Park, to hike and thus explore this park for the first time, getting outdoors during the pandemic. This post is part two of three about Great Seal, covering the third hike, on November 13th. Part one of the series is here.

The park is named "Great Seal" because the hills of the park are a feature of the State Seal of Ohio. They are part of the view from Adena Mansion, the home of Thomas Worthington, Ohio's sixth governor.

Here is an overall map of the trail systems, which curl around and up and down the terrain. Click on the image to enlarge. As you can see from the map, the park is much taller, north-to-south, than wide.

Many of the trails are multi-purpose, with foot, horse, and off-road bicycle traffic allowed. In addition, there is a spider-web of narrow bike trails that are unsuitable for horses and lack the signage of the multi-purpose routes.

For our third visit Joan and I parked not off Lick Run road, our starting point for the first two hikes, but at the campground area at the northern end of the park. We started out on the Shawnee trail, in blue, at the top of this map.

Note how Shawnee skirts the Disc Golf trail.

Our first goal was Sugarloaf Mountain, so at intersection A in the above map we turned left, onto the yellow route, only to descend before the steep climb up Sugarloaf. It's one of the steepest sections in the whole park, straight up the side and gaining 500' in a quarter mile. Joan and I were glad we brought hiking poles; I'd hate to go down that trail in wet weather.

Gaining the top.

Looking to the west.

Then it was down the far side, passing stately trees.

The trail plunged down Sugarloaf to intersection B, and then wound towards the base of Bald Hill before climbing again.

Joan and I continued to intersection C,

and then took the left-hand path to visit the ridge of Bald Mountain. The climb wasn't at all bad, not like Sugarloaf.

A hornet nest seen along the way.

Hikers and bikers had been on the ridge before us.

The descent from the ridge line to intersection E, a gap between hills, was steep at first, but we managed to stay upright. Just before reaching E we saw the skeleton of an old car off to the left, a reminder that this land was not pristine when it was incorporated into a park. Not long after engaging with the switchbacks up to Sand Hill, there was another reminder. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

Another visit to Sand Hill, an excellent snack stop.

More photos at Sand Hill, from the previous hike's visit, are here. From Sand Hill we continued south to the closed road.

Joan and I were curious to see why the road was closed, walked around the barriers, and headed downhill. The answer was soon obvious.

The road had been eaten away for the next half mile. Joan suggested that an early farm road, meant for wagons and such, had been paved over without proper consideration of the heavy loads that would then traverse it. The soils underneath couldn't support them indefinitely.

On the road we reached the point where the Grouse Rock trail passes close by, also near the middle parking area, near the top of this map.

A short connector from the road to Grouse Rock exists and is signed, although it doesn't appear on the map. We headed east, rejoined the Shawnee trail, and began our return. Joan and I chose to take the Sand Hill trail between H and G, avoiding the steep descent on Shawnee after H.

We hiked down the pleasant switchbacks to E, and turned left to intercept the Shawnee again, passing just below the Bald Hill ridge.

Joan and I continued on Shawnee, retracing our steps of the morning, except between B and A, the segment not taken on the way out because of our Sugarloaf excursion.

We could not see what was special about this tree or location, but it caught our eye.

We heard voices on our return; the disc golf course had players taking advantage of the sunny afternoon. The course does pass through the woods, so it must be a challenging one. Joan and I passed close enough to the players to glance at them, but we didn't speak; the Shawnee and Disc Golf trails come close but do not intersect.

This day covered a lot of ground!