Log 2009122201

(This is transcribed log from a spiral bound notepad dated: December 22nd, 2009. At this point, I had only been active, day hiking the Buckeye Trail for the previous 53 days)

I am on a journey.  4am, I departed Painesville for Camp Asbury to continue on the Burton Section northbound.  There were places, because of snow, that I almost didn't make it up.

In Burton, I had traditional American cuisine @ Cogan's Restaurant.  28 miles later, I looped back on OH-700 but had doubts.  Water seeped in old boots on Mile 2.  So on Mile 17, new, unbroken-in boots were changed into.  I pulled into Hiram College to take a snooze.  The people there very kind.  3 miles to the car @ Asbury.  I'll have to muster everything that I have left just to make it.

Log 2014090801

I'm at Days Inn in the City of Athens for a night. I still have yet to complete New Straitsville Section - Buckeye/ North Country/ American Discovery Trail, Pts. 19 - 27. The place where I intended to road side camp is a designated parking area in the Athens Unit of the Wayne National Forest, which may be construed as a "trailhead." Road side camping is prohibited within 150' of trailheads and I don't know of another suitable spot around there.

Anyways, I really needed a NiMH battery recharger. My previous unit was lost and I was getting low on charged AA's and AAA's. These batteries power the flashlights and hand GPS and I didn't want to risk loosing both on the next route. I lost my paper map on the previous route and the only thing that would back me up would be navigation by waypoints only on the smartphone.

The smartphone can eat batteries when navigating. The phone's aftermarket application wouldn't take my Buckeye Trail tracks (the line you follow). But it was good with the waypoints, which is a custom file that i wrote corresponding with the points in a Buckeye Trail map. Those points have a descriptive guide that without digital copies from the Buckeye Trail Association, would have taken a considerable amount of time to transcribe myself. And there was no promise that the text would have shown up on either app, or the hand GPS (since i haven't experimented with it yet, I felt that the project was too risky to undergo considering the fixed amount of time I was under to prepare other things.

The track on the hand GPS is based on the the BTA's GPS/ GIS Depository. They are somewhat beta and work as well as displayed on Google Earth. I've only been lost once and that was on an off-road portion where there was a 5-way intersection and for some reason, the trail wasn't blazed there and I had to guess. Well, I guessed wrong. But it didn't take long to know that I wasn't traveling the same course as the track and I promptly fixed that. These days, my hand GPS is my primary means of navigation, even with a map.

Trail Angel on Old Man's Cave Section

-I hosted Greg K. at Basecamp D for a few days

We hiked Old Man's Cave Section from Pt. 19 - S to 26 - W, which I've designated as the ST Lawn in the Pretty Run property.

I took a waypoint for Pt. 26. The one that I had was an approximate location.

Afterwards, we met a friend there who is known to many in the BTA. Instead of riding back, I was grateful that he gave me a ride back to Basecamp D.

Correction regarding the name of the campground for Basecamp D. It is the "Old Man's Cave Campground" at Hocking Hills State Park in Benton Twp of Hocking County. 

Axles on my mountain bike need to be calibrated again. I have a quick releases on both wheels with disc braking system. The true on the rear wheel has been holding up, but I'm not sure how much longer?

The bicycle's tires have been deflated to 44psi to put more rubber down and handle more aggressive dirt roads. But when i came down hill around a turn at high speed on a paved road, the rear wheel folded over and i almost wiped out.

The USB generator as mounted on the bicycle's right rear fork was moved back about 1". This was done so that it would no longer knock into the right crank in gears 5 - 7 on the high sprocket. 

Nonetheless,  shifting into gears 5 & 6 high require that I over shift, then down shift into them. 6 high still requires that some torque be applied before it shifts at all. From what I'm told, it's probably a problem with the rear detailer, but it's nothing that needs fixed imeadately.  With all that being said, the gear cassette was just recently changed in Zanesville by a mechanic that i trust and have used in the past. And I'm confident that it's my bike and not their work. Frankly, they are some of the only two people who have ever got my bike right. The way i see it, you have to stick to what work.

My Minora truing stand lost a piece that secures a bicycle axle when the spokes are being serviced. I'm convinced that i might be able to use the other parts of the stand which might bend and reach up to the rim if i attempt to true it as still mounted to the bike using my double kickstand? It could work on both wheels if I place a load on the rear rack to bring up the front tire.

The accuracy of my Garmin eTrex 20 seems to be very good for a hand held GPS.

Some of my NiMH battery cells are bad. They'll have to be charged up one, or two at a time to weed out the bad ones.

The Cramper's awning is showing signs of stress.  During a hard rain, water will pelt through. This piece of canvas was waterproofed in July.

Log 2014051401

I submitted a TXT file to the Buckeye Trail Association's Facebook group regarding Townships, villages and cities that are on the route of the circuit.  Much of the data was compiled using county maps that displayed townships and incorporated areas on the Wikipedia page for each county.  Those images were overlaid and resized to fit the county boundaries on Google Earth.

This project was completed because the OTHR's cost analysis relies on property ownership data in Putnam, Paulding and Defiance Counties that is unknown.  In order to get that information, I'll have to consult with the county engineer offices to make that determination.  Right now, as far as I can tell, nobody in the BTA is sure about where on the Miami & Erie Canal Heel & Towpath trailside camping is permitted?  And that's because Buckeye has the right to pass on some portions that the state doesn't have ownership of.  Where it doesn't, camping is up to the owner.

In these areas, if the hiker can not trailside camp, then there may not be any other commercial amenities in range.  And this is an area of the circuit that is without transit, probably it's biggest gap.  I predict that there will opportunities to trailside camp within OTHR's 24.9mi limit for distance hikers.  But right now, camping on this heel/ towpath outside of the designated limits for the Miami & Erie State Trail was brought up on Facebook over a year ago and there still isn't any resolution on it.  And that's probably because nobody's had the time to drive out there and consult those public records yet.  Looks like I'll be the first.