Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
October in Ohio just might be the best month of all. Warm sunny days, foggy dawns, incredible sunsets, crisp nights by the firepit under starry skies.
And color. So many deciduous trees means that, come October, there’s an artist’s palette of colors. So many leaves turning yellows, oranges and reds. Though this year's drought may affect both the intensity and timing of fall colors, mid- to late-October is typically the best time to enjoy them.
Ohio is a wonderful state with so many great destinations, and so many discoveries to be made by widening your circle of exploration.
Just north of the town of Cambridge, sprawling over a stunning rolling natural landscape is Ohio’s largest state park. Salt Fork State Park and its 17,229 acres pretty much has it all. A large lake with two marinas, good fishing, a diverse natural area with miles of hiking trails, a modern campground, deluxe vacation cabins, a large modern lodge and conference center, abundant wildlife, an archery range and, well, let’s just say it offers a lot.
And if you’re the adventuring type, looking for something seldom seen in Ohio, less than an hour away is a place called Dysart Woods, a 455-acre land laboratory that’s protecting some of Ohio’s oldest trees. The best is a 50-acre section of old-growth forest, the largest such forest left in southeast Ohio.
It’s not easy to come by this place. An interstate that cuts Ohio in half gets you close enough, but there are twists and turns and, finally, the old gravel lane to a hilltop crowded with young upstart trees that reach for the sky without regard for the ancient ones below.
Take the trail that starts high on the hilltop, off a gravel farm road, in a grassy clearing that serves adequately as a parking lot. Young trees crowd the opening as if clamoring for attention. Thick and vigorous, they hide the slopes that fall away and block the view of natural treasures below.
Head off in any direction, clamber down the slope, and the earth is blanketed by trees. Big trees. Strong trees. Old trees. Trees that grow older as the slopes dive to the valleys. A narrow woodland path cuts across a slope, zigging and zagging on a route defined by the cloud-gray trunks of old American beech.
It’s difficult to understand, sometimes, what makes a place special. Sometimes the lure is uncommon beauty. Sometimes strength, sometimes comfort, sometimes it is the irresistible personality of a place. Sometimes it is all of those things and more that beckons.
At Dysart Woods the reason is simple and straightforward. It’s the promise of seeing big old trees that are throwbacks to an Ohio nearly forgotten, an Ohio where giant trees towered everywhere over the landscape. It was the greatest hardwood forest the world has ever known. A forest so lush it was said a squirrel could make its way from the Ohio River to Lake Erie without touching the ground. Sadly, the great forest is gone. An irreplaceable resource squandered.
It is the survivors of that great forest that call. Some of them are trees of giant proportions. They seem grizzled and wise, these trees that have seen many seasons. Trees that beckon back to a time when Ohio was wild and untamed. Two hundred fifty years ago such trees would have been commonplace.
The trail drops into the valley, flows past big old shagbark hickories and down to a small bridge over a stream that’s loud in spring and only a whisper in the fall. American beech still dot the route, wildflowers splash the woods with springtime color. But in October, it is the trees that take their turn at redecorating the woods.
Oaks – big oaks – 300-year-old oaks quietly watch your approach. You’re not the first to follow the path. Not so long ago only one feature was marked on the map for this place – the “Tulip Tree” it said, and the path was the only way to reach it.
Sadly, the old tree met its end in a momentary head-on clash with a force older than the tree itself. Such a sad event would scarcely have been noticed 200 ago. A giant in a forest of giants isn’t much of a target. A giant that towers alone, reaching high into the sky, dared lightning to do what the lumberman could not bring himself to do.
The remnants are still there. The seven-foot diameter trunk on this giant once rose over half its 150-foot height before branching. It was broken off at that branch. It’s crown lay at the base of the trunk, itself bigger than most Ohio trees. The force of its fall left the earth torn and disheveled. Since then, other old giants have died, the result of a new coal mine that altered the forest hydrology in 2010.
Still, if you love the woods, it’s worth a visit.
