Manhattan Sportage: Project Hike, Part I

I've started a new project, where I take a hike a week. Yesterday was the first, through the South Chagrin Reservation, along the Chagrin River. Now I am, by no means, a skilled hiker. I guess I've hiked a lot, and I do hike from time to time, but I can't exactly read a topo map, and I don't know the names of plants or the difference between an escarpment and a hillside. Mostly, it just makes me happy to be outdoors. What exactly the difference is between hiking and walking, I'm not quite sure...Maybe...it's hiking if you're wearing a backpack?

So I begin my hike, sporting a pair of red Nikes and a Manhattan Portage backpack (VERY hardcore-hiker-looking, I know). I had planned to follow the Great Blue Heron Trail along the Chagrin River, up to the Swallow Loop Trail and back--all in all, 8ish or so miles.

The Great Blue Heron trail head was easy enough to find, right next to the Polo Fields, as it said on the map. Once I figured out which way was North, which took about 20 minutes and left me feeling quite pathetic (note to self--procure a compass--My Blackberry's GPS gets confused), I was on my way!

So there I am, marching along, smelling the sweet, grassy forest air, feeling pretty great about life and my new vow to be adventuresome... Ahh.. beautiful day, gentle breeze, enjoying th--KERSPLUNK! I find myself ankle-deep in a gucky mixture of mud and water with a little algae growing on top of it. Awesome. Nature! I can do this. What kind of novice hiker would I be if I let a little greenish-brown guck get in the way of my divine communion with Mother Earth? [Answer: a novice--exactly what I am--which should've given me a clue, but didn't]. I press onward, following what KIND of looks like a trail, but is mostly obscured by the 6-foot tall grass-plant-reed thingies that surround it for what seem like swimming pools of distance on either side (I'm exaggerating, of course, but at the time, I didn't think I was). The tall plant things become denser and denser, covering more and more of the "trail" until I can barely see my feet, and KERSPLUNK! Yet again. The guck returns. [I keep having flashbacks to that scene in Troop Beverly Hills where Shelley Long and her troop are wading through a swamp with a tennis racket because the Red Feathers (those bitches) turned the trail flags around.--It would've been nice to have a tennis racket right then.] The mosquitoes are now basically congregating in a cloud around my face. I can't see more than a foot in front of or behind me for all the damn foliage. I didn't realize I'd be taking a hike through the frickin' Vietnam jungle! I seem to recall having seen a marker for a bridle trail when I first entered the Great Blue Demon--We have a choice here: Would I rather continue to bat my way through the bush or dodge horse poop for three miles? Well Fuck this shit. Completely disoriented, I turn around and attempt to make my way back the way I came, back through the guck, back through the swimming pools of tall plants, now holding my arms in front of me after being repeatedly smacked in the face. By some kind of miracle from Jesus, I come to a clearing, though it isn't the one I started at, and there she is: SC1--Scenic Bridle Trail. ROUND 2.

The Bridle trail is wide, open, and goes through fields of wildflowers, often meandering along a roadside or two. And as it turns out, SC1 runs parallel to the Great Blue Heron. I do the bridle thing for a while, passing families with small children, geriatric walkers, runners, horse-back riders--of course, dog-walkers...I take a few close-up photos of flowers. It's beautiful. I'm bored.

Back to the bush!

Knowing exactly what I'm getting myself into this time, I plunge through the tall plants with a vengeance! Occasionally, the Blue Heron will dump me out at the river's edge, where the world opens up. I snap a few photos, have a transcendentalist moment, and eat some trailmix before sloshing my way across to the rest of the trail. At one point, four feet in front of me, a doe leaps across the trail, disappearing into the tall grasses. Eventually, I end up at the Squaw Rock Loop, which takes me up a hill and along a ridge overlooking the river. It's cooler in the heights, with a lovely canopy and a little more terrain, kind of perfect, actually. Reminds me the hike my family used to take every year in Helen, Georgia on our camping trip. How very pleasant! I pass a few little waterfalls and decide to take the bridle trail back, coming across a wetland and an abundance of wildflowers--well worth the gucky start!

Definitely--Not Walking.



I never did find the Swallow Loop Trail. Maybe next time.