Bloodroot Trail Trip

http://imgur.com/a/awLgS

I just finished a solo trip to Salamonie Lake and hiked their Bloodroot backpacking trail. Was supposed to be 2 nights 1.5 days, but I got such a good start that I arrived at camp at 2pm on day 2, and setting up camp in the rain, then sitting around for 6 freaking hours until the absolute earliest I might consider sleeping just was not an option when my car was only 4 miles away.

The trail is a 13 mile loop. The first leg is mostly cornfields on the right and forest on the left. The swath of woods the trail is on is just a couple hundred feet thick. Once you make the u-turn it's pure forest and much more fun. The trail stays on top of every spur so you end up switching back and forth several times with some fun minor descents and climbs. Probably in the 30' to 40' arena.

With my early start I found a trail called the Koinitoki Bike Loop and I decided to take it thinking it would be something like a mile or two and that would delay my arrival at camp by maybe an hour. The trail did end up being 2 miles, but for some reason as I was hiking it, the uncertainty of the actual length really freaked me out and I swore I was out on this loop for a couple of hours, and this extra mileage was going to mean coming into camp after dark. I was obviously way way off.

I took a break at 4 miles, then lunch at 8 miles, and just as I started out after lunch it started to rain. I threw on my rain jacket and pack cover and kept on moving. I reached the campsite about an hour later and it was a full on drizzle. It was about 40 degrees, so this was tough. It was too cold to get wet, but I was way warm in my rain jacket. I slowed my pace down to cool off since taking a break in the drizzle would be horrible. I ended up doing the final 6 miles in one long go, sometimes slow, sometimes a bit faster.

It was actually a pretty sweet little get away. I camped at a campground with access to a trail system that goes 10 miles to the north. Thursday night I showed up early and hiked 2 miles out, then came back. So my total mileage for the trip was nearly 19 miles. If I had the time, I could do the whole 20 mile loop north, then the 13 mile loop east. That's a really decent trip. What I saw of the north/south trail was pretty cool, very awesome terrain.

The cool thing on this trip was the reservoir that the trail hugs was drained. It was just mud and sand and dead trees as far as the eye can see. It looked like some alien planet, very strange. Apparently they just go ahead and drain it every winter so that when it snows and thaws there is room for the extra water. Then once that cycle is done, they maintain a summer level for boaters. I found access at one point to climb down and check it out. I found some old beer cans, old car rims, and a few other strange artifacts. This lake is actually the site of an old town. Lincoln City I think, the foundations of the whole town are visible when the lake gets down low like this, but it was north of where I was, didn't get a chance to check it out.

Fun trip overall, kind of short, but I'm glad I didn't camp. I'd just now be thinking about going to bed as opposed to having dinner, a shower, a beer, and some time on reddit. I'm all for hanging out in nature, but that's too much downtime for my tastes, at least for a winter trip with rain.