Communiqué
The Buckeye Trail Traverses Ohio for Over 1,400 Miles and Loops the State
By: Tom Hodson
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The Buckeye Trail is a 1,440 mile loop around Ohio with both on-road and off-road paths through 48 of Ohio’s 88 counties and through nearly 100 various communities.
It travels through the Hocking Hills State Park, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the Little Miami Scenic Trail, the Miami and Erie Canal Towpath, the Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath, the northern terminus at Headlands Dunes State Nature Preserve on Lake Erie and the Ohio River Bluff at Eden Park in Cincinnati.
Conceived in 1959, the trail officially became Ohio’s State Trail in 1967. Each year, hundreds of hikers trek over portions of the trail’s circuitous route around the state.
“We have only had about a dozen hikers ‘thru-hike’ the whole trail all at once, but hundreds of people have walked the whole trail by ‘section-hiking’ it a little at a time,” says Andrew Bashaw, the Executive Director of the Buckeye Trail Association.
The development and upkeep of the trail is dependent on private donations and hundreds of volunteers each year.
The Association is having its spring membership drive in Athens on April 14 at 6 p.m. at Jackie O’s, according to Sally Sugar, an Honors Tutorial College student who is helping with promotion, sales and member relations for the Trail.
Members make financial contributions to the preservation of the Trail but they also volunteer to help clear brush, paint trail markers (blue blazes), and pick up litter along the trail. Some members work at “trail work” parties and other members adopt a certain stretch of the trail to maintain and preserve year round.
The Trail is self-supporting through fundraisers, memberships, grants and selling Buckeye Trail Related merchandise.
More information can be obtained about the Trail and the Buckeye Trail Association at http://www.buckeyetrail.org/. This site also includes section maps for hikers.