Log 2014090301

I was in Lancaster of Fairfield County resupplying and overnighting at a hotel.  My Nishiki Colorado mountain bike has new handle grips, road bike grip tape on my extension handles and a battery bag that mounts within the top back corner of my frame.  The new bag carries my external cell phone battery.

I also got a new machete. This one is curved and I think of it as a Arabic sword.  Two additional 946mL water bottles have been procured.  The reason is that I though I could save one of my 1L bottles, but it turns out that with the high humidity, higher temperatures in southern Ohio (as compared to NE Ohio) and the fact that some of the trails aren't very well maintained, I've determined that my consumption is going to be higher than I originally predicted.

With that being said, I've established myself at Basecamp C again because I did not want to attempt a roadside camp in the Athens Unit - Wayne National Forest when we had a storm 3 days ago.  I'm just not confident that I can park The Cramper in a way that won't get stuck in 3" of muddy top soil.  So the upcoming and remaining hikes on the New Straitsville Section - Buckeye/ North Country/ American Discovery Trail will have to be staged from the campground Burr Oak State Park instead.  And that means that my fuel consumption will go up a little.

I got reports last week that the portion of trail from Tom Jenkins Dam through Murray City area was overgrown.  Last year, I performed maintenance on the New Straitsville Section and based on experience, I think I know what I'm getting myself into.

High grasses can make a opportunity to get ambushed by a venomous snake.  I learned in years past that if I place my retractable hiking poles in one hand in an "X" formation, I can "blast" through those trouble areas, but that makes for an aggressive hike. And then there's the machete...

Log 2014032801

This morning, I finally got the 2014 Edition of the Ohio Transit Hikers Resource (OTHR) done.  I've been working at this refit for just over a month.  And the map needed to be done first because the new guide is based off it.  And because the map has a lot of new editions, the guide will also have more entries.

Within the last year, the Buckeye Trail Association released it's GIS/ GPS Depository.  Because it did, I'm now able to display every amenity spur from transit to the trail that there is available according to my method of discrimination, which are distances no greater than 4 miles from trail.  General Public county dial-a-ride transit this year opened up in Harrison, Perry, an extension of Fairfield, Pike, Miami, Sandusky, Seneca and Ashland Counties.  A city based dial-a-ride opened up and caters to the general public in Logan of Hocking County.  Dial-a-Ride type services open to "residents only" occurred in Monroe, Athens and Tuscarawas Counties, they are also new to the 2014 edition.

I decided that since there were two hotels on the east side of the City of Medina that I also included 3 new fixed routes in that city.  The track for the Brunswick Transit Alternative, which OTHR abbreviates as "BrTA" (because of the Buckeye Trail Association being BTA), needed to be written.  They have two routes that are routed like a "figure 8."  Last year, I only wrote track for one side of it because I thought that was all the hiker needed.  But, to my chagrin, those buses are circulators, which means that each loop runs in only one direction, so I remedied that and wrote the entire system this year.

OTHR lost transit coverage in the City of Delphos on the Delphos Section - Buckeye Trail (North Country Trail concurrent).  The Lima/ Allen County Regional Transit Authority (L/ACRTA) is no longer offering what OTHR refers to as "hybrid fixed route, or HFR" services to there, or Spencerville (also on trail, but was never listed).  HFR's are buses that are generally routed from one place to another, like point "A" to point "b", but certain deviations could be made and it requires a reservation, much like a dial-a-ride service.  The Buckeye Trail is served by a similar route in Waterville of Lucas County. But the information for both of those transit routes is still listed on L/ACRTA's website. But I hope to see them back up and running in the future.  OTHR's largest transit gap is in that part of Northwest Ohio. 

This year, with the edition of the extended transit services out of Fairfield County, that put the parts of the New Straitsville, Scioto Trail and all of the Old Man's Cave Section - BT [NCT and American Discovery Trail (ADT) concurrent] in range of it and the Greyhound affiliate "GoBus'" Lancaster (Carroll) stop.  Between this location, their stop in the City of Logan and local transit on both sides, one could embark on a 4 day, 65 mile route that would include Hocking Hills and some of the best hiking that the Buckeye has to offer.

So the regional transit in the south area now works like Marietta/ Parkersburg - Logan - Lancaster - Piketon - Peebles - Batavia - Cincinnati.

Last year, I noted that the Huron County Transit offers services extending up the US-250 corridor to Sandusky.  I never wrote a track for it because I considered it to be a part of a dial-a-ride program.  But this year, I changed it's OTHR status to a HFR.  Sandusky's Greyhound stop was out of range and it's Amtrak train arrived in the middle of the night, which would give the transit hiker 3+ hour layover until Huron County Transit was operating.  Well, now I wrote the tracks for the Sandusky-Perkins Area Ride Connection (SPARC).  So, hikers are in transit range of that Greyhound stop now and it should have better hours for transferring there.