Sightings at Clear Creek, Rhododendron Cove, Wahkeena, and Christmas Rocks

Between June 10th and 23rd, 2025, Joan and I visited four different parks and preserves with the goal of 1) checking them out, and 2) building up our hiking stamina!

 

On our first visit, Clear Creek Metro Park, we focused mainly on the Fern and Hemlock trails. (Click on any image to enlarge.)

A view of the Hemlock Trail, before it starts its big climb.

Various mushrooms and fungi ...

Click on any image to enlarge.

Best of all, a grey rat snake, holding still and hoping it looked like a stick.

Not far away, at the Rhododendron Cove State Nature Preserve, there were some early rhododendron blooms, but just a few on our June 12th visit. Here's a good one:

Further along, we saw two eastern American toads, of distinct sizes and coloration.

This one was quite young!

After descending from Rhododendron Cove, Joan and I drove to the nearby Wahkeena Nature Preserve (Fairfield County Parks). We enjoyed the one-mile loop walk, the ponds, and the exhibits in the visitor center; photographically, I caught this image of a blue dasher, one of the best photos I've taken recently.

While chatting with a staff member outside the visitor center, we caught a brief glimpse of what we believe was a river otter. Wahkeena isn't far from the Hocking River, so it's plausible. There was a green dragon outside the visitor center, a plant Joan had been hoping to see for years.

 

On the 16th, we returned to Clear Creek, but started at the far western side. The day was hot and humid, but at least the percentage chance of rain was low. The next photo is another American toad.

The same patch hosted a much smaller toad.

Here's a surprise an hour later on -- fire pinks!

A panoramic shot representative of one of the less steep parts of the Chestnut Ridge trail.

Five minutes later, a green adder's-mouth orchid! Too bad the focus was on the single leaf rather than the bloom ...

There are sometimes water trickles, rivulets, or minor creeks tucked into folds along the trail. Today we noticed one hosting many small "froglets,"

and a bigger sibling.

At the east end of the trail, Joan and I encountered a butterfly study group led by two Metro Park staff. Along that path there was a green-fringed orchid.

We continued to the intersection of the Fern and Hemlock trails and, with the heat and humidity sapping our strength, decided it was time to retrace our steps back ~3 miles to our starting point. About an hour into our return we noticed a blooming southern catalpa -- it's hard to miss --

native to the deep south of the United States, but now widely planted and naturalized well beyond its original range.

 

On June 20th, Joan and I visited Christmas Rocks State Nature Preserve. It was a hot and muggy day -- but according to the forecasts, the best day for at least a week!

To make this a more substantial hike, Joan and I did the loops in both directions, clockwise and counterclockwise. This had the salutary side-effect that plants and animals that weren't visible in one direction were detected on the other loop. And what did we see early on, but yet another American toad! Perhaps they enjoy the warm, humid air.

The view at the crest of the orange loop, called Jacob's Ladder, is minimized by greenery in summer,

but there are some landmarks to see with binoculars, and we watched a kettle of vultures begin to coalesce in the rising columns of air.

Next, a token on the side of the trail, which someone had obviously deliberately placed.

Then, another blue darter damselfly!

This midland painted turtle looks like it has algae on its shell, doesn't it? We found it well up the hillside.

Here's a view of a sandstone formation on the blue loop.

The "panorama" mode on my camera created some sun streaks.

And we encountered another damselfly, a female ebony jewelwing.

Then, our friend the rattlesnake plantain. Joan and I saw quite a few here.

Finally, although I don't have a photo, on our clockwise trek on the blue loop we encountered a kentucky warbler, who must have read a guidebook based on its behavior. Bug in mouth, it chittered at us from a bush adjacent to the trail, distracting us from the actual location of its nest.

 

It's been a great treat/workout exploring nearby Ohio Parks and Nature Preserves. Now if only the heat would let up.

Rhododendron Cove and Rockbridge, Winter Hike

On a warmer mid-January day Joan and I laced up our hiking boots and ventured down to two state nature preserves, Rhododendron Cove and Rockbridge, both also documented at a warmer time of year here (for Rhododendron Cove) and here (for Rockbridge).

We started at Rhododendron Cove State Nature Preserve. Accumulated snow and sleet lingered in pockets.

We soon discovered critter tracks.

Not all were from the same creature.

There were plenty of sandstone features on the climb to the ridge top.

Amazing interactions between the stone and trees. Click on the image to enlarge.

At the top there are views into mini canyons, formed by blocks shifting downhill after splitting from the main mass.

Much of the ridgetop walk looked like this.

I'd say there's been some soil loss, or perhaps a log rotted away, since this tree sprouted.

After finishing our walk at Rhododendron Joan and I drove a short distance to Rockbridge State Nature Preserve. The trails were less crunchy here; we enjoyed the warming day but spots on the trails were treacherously muddy. In other, shadier and less trodden places, ice and snow lingered.

This tree and slope combination caught my eye.

I apologize for no photo from above the rockbridge, but there's one here from another visit.

At the viewpoint for the rock bridge, which we were underneath.

Let's apply a little blush with the Deep Dream Generator.

Joan and I added the rock shelter loop to our hike. Here Joan provides some scale for the rock slabs, center top.

We were treated to a few hawk sightings, but I was able to catch only one distant photo.

Joan and I have met a lot of folks taking hikes for the first time in these less well known state parks and preserves. We're all eager to be outdoors in a safe space.

Today was great; it was therapeutic; it was invigorating. So rare to have a day outdoors in January!

Rhododendron Cove and Shallenberger Preserve

Amid all the social distancing and a very damp spring -- precipitation is flirting with 8" above normal, year-to-date -- Joan and I took advantage of two sunny Mondays, 4/20 and 4/27, to get outdoors. We visited the Rhododendron Cove State Nature Preserve and Shallenberger SNP: both on 4/20 and just Shallenberger on 4/27.

These features were created from sandstone laid down hundreds of millions of years ago, when Ohio was beneath the ocean. After uplift and becoming dry land the sandstone began eroding, and finally collars of moraine debris were laid down at the base of high points during the last glaciation, which, this far south, didn't reach the tops of the "knobs."

Rhododendron Cove
Parking for Rhododendron Cove is across a side road from a natural gas compression station. After a short, flat walk the trail turns left and begins to climb.

The property was donated to ODNR, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

Ferns were poking up out of the ground, most still coiled and curled.

As were spring wildflowers, including the early saxifrage -- that's its name, early saxifrage.

The large-flowered bellwort. It's so bashful it never raises its head.

Note the perfoliate leaves -- the stem pokes through them.

From the small to the large, consider the trees.

Climbing up to a switchback.

Heading through a slot in the sandstone.

The trail turns sharply right after the rocks above. For a short stretch it's quite steep.

The sandstone layers are often pocked with erosion features.

The cap blocks may be isolated from their neighbors.

The rhododendron weren't in bloom yet. They usually blossom between early and late June, depending on the weather.

Here they love sheltered, cool mini-canyons.

Erosion  can also produce a lace effect.

Tons of violets were on the trails, purple, yellow, even white.

We even saw jack-in-the-pulpit.

 

Shallenberger

A short distance back towards Columbus from Rhododendron is the Shallenberger State Nature Preserve, another gift to ODNR. These pictures were taken on both 4/20 and 4/27.

The trail at Shallenberger isn't as demanding as at Rhododendron, but there is up and down. Joan and I soon encountered a hillside covered in large trillium.

A closeup. Notice the yellow pollen stains on the lower petals. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

A fallen trunk with a burl near its base.

We had plucked the occasional garlic mustard, an invasive species, back at Rhododendron, but Shallenberger needed lots of help. Some visitors had already been at work, with mustard corpses in the trail or hanging from trees. We walked down the paths slowly, sometimes diverting for five or ten minutes to pull up an egregious patch.

The hillsides were greening up nicely.

A red-bellied woodpecker, photo taken after a hasty rendezvous to generate more red-bellies.

The trail consists of two loops, one around each of a pair of knobs, joined by a short segment. The top of the first knob is accessible, if you're OK with stairs.

The view from the top will close in soon, as the leaves bust out, but I took this photo through one gap in the foliage. It's clear why the early settlers called these features "knobs."

A major shelf fungus.

Soon it was time to speed up our garlic mustard plucking and then return to the car. We had encountered only a few people on the trail during these two days of sunshine in the time of social distancing. Given the weather forecast, Joan and I should have another chance next week.