Metro Parks backpacking trip offers chance to get lost in the 'wild' | Theodore Decker
Last weekend I learned that you can get lost in one of our Metro Parks.
The good news is that you would have to try very hard to stay lost in one of our Metro Parks.
The four of us — five if you count our 13-year-old beagle-Bassett mix — were about halfway into our mini-backpacking trip at Scioto Grove Metro Park when we ran out of trail at twilight on Saturday.
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But I'm getting ahead of myself, which is how we ended up in the predicament to begin with.
Since the kids were little, we've been a family of campers. But as they grew older and activities pulled everyone in different directions, the getaways to the woods often were pushed aside.
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Last summer, my son went on an extended backpacking trip in New Mexico. This summer, before returning to college, he completed a 40-mile solo trip in the Dolly Sods Wilderness in West Virginia.
I felt inspired by his treks, but we didn't have the time for an outing like that. Even if we did, such an excursion would have ended with me being airlifted to the nearest hospital.
No, I needed a trip for someone who is low on time and high on the Body Mass Index.
Scioto Grove's REI River Trail checked all the boxes.
Scioto Grove is one of the newer Metro Parks. Its 620 acres, between Jackson Pike and the Scioto River, opened to the public in 2016.
One amenity is not often found in an urban metro park. Outfitter REI donated $20,000 to Metro Parks to install five backpacking campsites on elevated pads along a trail named for the co-op retailer.
The sites are available on Friday and Saturday nights from April through October. You have to reserve them, but they are free.
The trail is perfect for beginning backpackers making the move beyond car-camping and as a new-gear testing ground for more experienced backpackers.
The sites are scattered along the trail at distances from the trailhead ranging from a half-mile to 2.5 miles. Rangers supply the firewood, but otherwise you're on your own. No trash cans, no potable water, no toilets, no picnic tables. Plan accordingly.
We reserved the farthest site and began our hike later than I would have liked, shortly before 5 p.m. Our packs weighed between 26 and 50 pounds. That higher end is laughably heavy for a single night in the woods. Laughably heavy, that is, until it landed squarely on my shoulders. But I've always been a pack rat.
The trail is mostly flat, and I figured we would take it slow.
Did we ever.
Our dog, Maggie, didn't have a pack to haul, but it became clear within a mile of the trailhead that our zeal to bring her along may not have been in the old girl's best interest. She's never been a speedy dog, but her pace, and ours by extension, slowed to about 1 mile per hour.
And then we got lost.
I swear that my son and I are usually capable of wilderness navigation. We know how to use a compass and map. Our mistake was due to complacency on our part — OK, cockiness, because what kind of bozo gets lost in a Metro Park? — and not-the-greatest signage on the park's part.
At Site #2, with 1.5 miles ahead of us, two roads diverged in a yellow wood.
And dang it all, we took the lesser traveled one.
The wrong one.
One path climbed away from the river and into the more developed heart of the park. Knowing our trail was named the REI River Trail, we chose the path that hugged the river bank.
We made it maybe an eighth of a mile before the trail narrowed. So did my eyes, in suspicion.
This wasn't looking right.
We kept going. Eventually steep bluff closed in our right. We ran out of riverbank.
We debated bushwhacking up the bluff with loaded packs and a 13-year-old dog, but decided that backtracking to Site #2 was the wiser course of action.
That unplanned detour was admittedly a mood-killer, at least for the two older and grouchier members of our party.
The mistake made the second half of the hike a bit of slog. We reached Site #5 after dark. But setting up camp in the dark is a family tradition, so we're pretty good at it by now.
And the rangers we'd checked in with at the trailhead had kept their promise. A generous pile of dry wood made fire-building a snap.
It was a cold night and we were beat. I was the last to retire and fell asleep before midnight, listening to what I think was the squawk of a black-crowned night heron, and the snores of the dog in the next tent over.
We took a different route back for a change of scenery.
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On the way, we met a couple about 20 years our senior who had never seen backpacking in action and peppered us with questions (including the inevitable bathroom question).
Another couple, this one about 20 years our junior, were apparently regulars and advised that our site was the best on the trail.
It was a nice end to a quick trip. And then, at home, I read something online that made it perfect: a Tripadvisor review of the park that made me laugh.
"Thought I was on the REI river trail but in reality I was just making my own trail," the person wrote. "I ended up climbing up the side of the hill to find the true trail. Noticed three other families get confused and took the wrong path while trying to get to the Rope Bridge."
Poet Robert Frost was sorry he could not travel both roads. At Scioto Grove, you may well have that opportunity.
Theodore Decker is the Dispatch metro columnist.
tdecker@dispatch.com
@Theodore_Decker
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Metro Parks backpacking trail a great chance to lose yourself
