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With the passing of 2017\u2019s fall equinox and scarce October harvest moon, Ohio is again blessed with a cool breeze, colorful foliage, brisk mornings and snuggly early sunsets. The season is autumn and brings with it comfort. It\u2019s the time of year for comfortable food, clothes and hiking. <\/span><\/p>\n Hiking during the autumn months is an eyeful. The hikers vision is stimulated by falling leaves colored yellow to red and scurrying forest critters busy at preparation for the cold of winter. If hiking during any other season is delightful, autumn hiking is brilliant. <\/span><\/p>\n The Miami Valley seems to have more space for people than for nature. But that isn\u2019t to say the valley is without natural getaways. What nature preserves we do have are quite beautiful to any standard. Miami Valley\u2019s abundance of humans amplifies the antisocial demand for peace and quiet, for which hiking is the remedy. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Montgomery County is home to the Five Rivers Metroparks, the public park system created in 1963 which currently consists of 18 parks, nearly all connected by bicycle path. Five Rivers Metroparks also maintains over 43 miles of hiking trail. <\/span><\/p>\n The 22-mile Twin Valley Backpacking Trail connects the Germantown and Twin Creek Metroparks, which are home to another 21 miles of trail and three primitive campsites. The trails through Germantown and Twin Creek are hilly and can be challenging, but offer different lengths ranging from seven miles to less than a mile long. <\/span><\/p>\n Germantown Metropark is where you\u2019ll most likely find me on the weekends. Seven loop trails branch off of the 7.5 mile orange blazed main loop, which circles three miles of Twin Creek as it leads to the Germantown Dam. The hilly hike takes about three hours at a wandering pace. A hurried pace in Germantown is easily slowed to wandering by a tendency to investigate local plants and fungi, and play in the creek. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The other 16 parks of Five Rivers Metroparks offer nice places to walk. The paths aren\u2019t long, but places like Huffman Dam, Possum Creek, Englewood, Sugarcreek and Taylorsville Metroparks are great places to walk about and enjoy the easy autumn weather. <\/span><\/p>\n Aside from the metroparks, the Dayton area has beautiful hiking at Bill Yeck Park in Centerville, and heavenly hiking in Yellow Springs. Yellow Springs is home to John Bryan State Park, Glen Helen nature preserve, and Clifton Gorge. I pity the fool who lives around Dayton and hasn\u2019t yet explored gorgeous Clifton Gorge. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Booted feet shuffle through fallen leaves, kicking black walnut husks downhill before rolling into fern filled underbrush past the coming switchback. Warm sunshine cuts through half bare branches giving subtle relief from the cool air. Tired legs appreciate the sudden charge of energy felt from a handful of mixed nuts.<\/span><\/p>\n A nearby pileated woodpecker drums a short-burst breaking deep thought of calm silence, bringing focus back to the eardrums which suddenly remember the sounds of the stream. The aromas of distant burning leaves flood cold nostrils, and the mind thanks the body for bringing it along for a relaxing autumn hike. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Will Drewing<\/strong> <\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the passing of 2017\u2019s fall equinox and scarce October harvest moon, Ohio is again blessed with a cool breeze, colorful foliage, brisk mornings and snuggly early sunsets. The season is autumn and brings with it comfort. It\u2019s the time of year for comfortable food, clothes and hiking. Hiking during the autumn months is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2110,2109,3],"tags":[2227,2224,1595,1384,2226,2225,2001],"class_list":["post-16459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local","category-opinion","category-tartan-news","tag-autumn","tag-hiking","tag-local","tag-opinion","tag-outdoors","tag-parks","tag-will-drewing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-4ht","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16459"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16461,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16459\/revisions\/16461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nManaging Editor<\/em><\/p>\n