Mohican Gorge

It's tough for me to call this one an adventure simply because it's only 30 minutes from my house, and I spend a lot of time in the area, but I think today was.

This is going to end up being an entry that will eventually need updated. On my trip today, I found the trail to be closed for a small portion about half way through where they are working on putting in a bridge over the river to connect the Gorge Overlook Trail with the Hemlock Gorge Trail, so I did not get to complete the loop.

If you're not familiar with the Mohican area, there is actually a state park and a state forest. For the most part, the main river that runs through the area, the Clear Fork Mohican River (a principal tributary of the Mohican River), lies within the state park boundaries. So I guess this also means the gorge which the river runs through is within the state park boundaries as well. In any case, whether you're in the state park or the state forest, it is an absolutely lovely area with many activities. When I was a trail runner, it was my training area, and the only race I have ever run as a trail runner was the Mohican Marathon, and I still hike the trails of Mohican regularly.

One of the things I don't like about having a "home court" for hiking though, is that it can get old. I like seeing new places. So when I found out last year that they had finished a new trail, I was excited to give it a go. The trail, the Gorge Overlook Trail, starts at one of the two overlooks and ends at the other. In between the two trailheads on opposite sides of the parking lot, it drops down into the gorge and runs along the river.

The reason I said today was an adventure is for a couple different reasons. One, as mentioned above, the trail is temporarily closed in a section. Secondly, and more importantly, there was still quite a bit of ice on the trail. That's not really a problem in flat sections, but on downhill sections, it's tricky. The hardest part is much of the ice was not easily seen. Much like there can be black ice on the roadways, there was brown ice on the trail. It was near impossible to see and I did slip once. This area is generally colder than surrounding areas, so even though we've been above freezing for a portion of almost every day for a week with plenty of sunshine, I suspect this area did not get nearly as warm as we did just 30 minutes east. Also, with the trail heading into the gorge and it being on the south side of the river, the sun just doesn't get a chance to warm up the ground here, at least not this time of the year.

With all that in mind though, I really did enjoy the hike and the expected views at the overlooks. I look forward to coming back once they are done with the bridge and the ground has thawed. I expect I'll find myself coming back to Mohican more often now because of this trail and the bridge as it'll give me more options for the trails I hike. One thing I found over the years is that I had to stick to one side of the river or the other, or be prepared for a long hike (12 miles minimum). There are plenty of options in the 2 - 8 mile range, and 15+ miles, but I always found the options in the 8 - 15 mile range very limited. The new trail and bridge will most assuredly present many new options in that range.

One other thing I really liked about this trail was very unexpected. I happened to see a waterfall! I'm not sure if it's just runoff or if it runs all year long, but I believe I'll be able to get some nice pictures after a good rain this summer. I couldn't today because getting to a good vantage point to take the pictures at the right angle will require a bit of scrambling, and I wasn't willing to try that today with snow and ice still present in some places.

As for my rating of the hike, I'm expecting this will be a nice treat once everything is completed, and the views from the overlooks are always beautiful (which don't require hiking). For now, I'll give it a rating of 7/10.

I'm not sure why the GPS tracked so horribly, but I'm still including it.