28 minutes ago, Mildtraumatic said:

^Would be very cool to find a place right by the lake shore -beach to camp. Might be able to get my girlfriend to go then. One of the excuses she makes, "It's too hot!" 

Mohican sounds like the place I'll go with others that are drinkers. Think I'm going to forget about backpack -camping. Been bear sightings down here this week and I even saw prints this Spring hiking a remote trail.

Lake County Metroparks has some lake campsites. I think they're booked for the year though. 

Have to take a ferry, but also Kelleys Island has sites on the water. 

1 hour ago, smith said:

Have to take a ferry, but also Kelleys Island has sites on the water. 

That would be awesome. Definitely looking into that. Never been there but always wanted to go there.

23 hours ago, Mildtraumatic said:

^Would be very cool to find a place right by the lake shore -beach to camp. Might be able to get my girlfriend to go then. One of the excuses she makes, "It's too hot!" 

Mohican sounds like the place I'll go with others that are drinkers. Think I'm going to forget about backpack -camping. Been bear sightings down here this week and I even saw prints this Spring hiking a remote trail.

 

 

you mean the lake erie shore? see my post above. let us know if you find anything available.

^ I saw your post and checking it out maybe for future, but really interested camping at Kellys Island.

6 hours ago, Mildtraumatic said:

^ I saw your post and checking it out maybe for future, but really interested camping at Kellys Island.

I camped there maybe 15 years ago. It was really great. As soon as we put up the tent it stormed like crazy, which just added to the fun. It was warm out, so not a big deal. And 30 min. later all was calm again. The beach was very nice, but with the water level crisis I'm not sure it's still there. 

 

Middle Bass was good too. But we unknowingly scheduled during some sort of college drunk fest, so being stuck there at night gold old reap quick. It was way louder and more obnoxious than anything I'd experienced at South Bass. 

^ yeah i have camped all the islands as well, albeit a long time ago. sb was actually the best as i recall. more amenities on island. we stayed in the state park on kellys and i have also stayed in cottages there. historically a lot of clevelanders own on kellys. 

 

i would also look into pelee island. i never camped there, but my family did rent cottages there for a few summers when i was a kid. i loved it. you could go out in the water past a deep part and then there were sand bars to set up lawn chairs way out in the lake lol. they must have camping too i would imagine.

 

i would rec east harbor above any of the islands though.

^Saw that one twice on the way to Dayton today

 

Left lane blocking isn't even illegal in Ohio, though.

Right after all this discussion about backpacking hiking on here, a young man that just graduated high school knocked on our door at dusk in early to mid July and asked if he could set up his tent in our yard. He said he was hiking the entire Buckeye trail and was 3/4 done. I was a little paranoid of his story because I thought we lived at least a mile from the trail but his story added up enough I invited him in our home for a shower and made him dinner and breakfast in the morning after checking his gear knowing he was the real deal. After dinner I explained I had a thread on camping and backpacking I found it to be a quite the coincidence over the whole affair. He said he had no problems with people along the trail but did say people were more friendly in the northern section of the trail and a little skittish in this area (out in the middle of nowhere). He believes he is the youngest to have traveled the whole trail. He used a GPS tracker to confirm his movements. His tracking could be tracked on a website and met up with him one more time for lunch which he requested a roast beef sub from Subway.

 

The morning he left our house I asked why he was so far off the trail and he said, "This is the trail. You are on it.", pointing to  the road our house is on.

 

Sycamore graduate completes 79-day solo trek around Buckeye Trail

Edited October 11, 20195 yr by Mildtraumatic

5 minutes ago, Mildtraumatic said:

Right after all this discussion about backpacking hiking on here, a young man that just graduated high school knocked on our door at dusk in early to mid July and asked if he could set up his tent in our yard. He said he was hiking the entire Buckeye trail and was 3/4 done. I was a little paranoid of his story because I thought we lived at least a mile from the trail but his story added up enough I invited him in our home for a shower and made him dinner and breakfast in the morning after checking his gear knowing he was the real deal. After dinner I explained I had a thread on camping and backpacking I found it to be a quite the coincidence over the whole affair. He said he had no problems with people along the trail but did say people were more friendly in the northern section of the trail and a little skittish in this area (out in the middle of nowhere). He believes he is the youngest to have traveled the whole trail. He used a GPS tracker to confirm his movements. His tracking could be tracked on a website and met up with him one more time for lunch which he requested a roast beef sub from Subway.

 

The morning he left our house I asked why he was so far off the trail and he said, "This is the trail. You are on it.", pointing to  the road our house is on.

 

Sycamore graduate completes 79-day solo trek around Buckeye Trail

 

I've heard of that trail but didn't know that anyone actually hiked it, kind of like that cross-country walking trail that comes through Hyde Park Square of all places.  I think I'd much prefer to bike something like that on a mountain bike rather than have to walk through neighborhoods with all of my backpacking gear.  

 

Another stunt idea I had recently was to try and GPS track a bike ride around the actual Ohio state border.  So bike along the Ohio River, up the Ohio/Penn state line as closely as possible, west under Lake Erie, and then down state line roads to the Ohio River.  So at the end you'd have a GPS map of the state to show off to your friends.  I did a loose measurement of it on Google Earth and it was WAY more than 1,000 miles to bike all the way around the edge of Ohio.  

 

Reminds me of the time when I had the idea to bike around all of the Great Lakes.  It was like 4,000 miles.  

 

 

 

On 7/14/2019 at 12:49 PM, smith said:

Have to take a ferry, but also Kelleys Island has sites on the water. 

How bad is the light pollution on Kellys Island and the nearby islands? One thing I loved about vacationing in Northern Michigan was how clear the sky was, being away from civilization. If I had to choose a place in Ohio to camp, light pollution would be a big factor for me. I like being able to see the hundreds of billions of stars, falling meteoroids (and hunting UFOs lol)

Edited February 6, 20214 yr by David

On 2/6/2021 at 1:20 PM, David said:

How bad is the light pollution on Kellys Island and the nearby islands? One thing I loved about vacationing in Northern Michigan was how clear the sky was, being away from civilization. If I had to choose a place in Ohio to camp, light pollution would be a big factor for me. I like being able to see the hundreds of billions of stars, falling meteoroids (and hunting UFOs lol)

It's pretty bad.   Compare Kelly's Island to northern Michigan on this map.

 

 https://www.darkskymap.com/nightSkyBrightness

2 minutes ago, Foraker said:

It's pretty bad.   Compare Kelly's Island to northern Michigan on this map.

 

 https://www.darkskymap.com/nightSkyBrightness

That's a cool website! I didn't know about that. The color-coding is really confusing to me, though. When they make these maps they should take into consideration people who are colorblind.