North Chagrin Reservation Metropark

I just got back from my first trip to a Cleveland Metropark (CMP)- a 7 mile hike in North Chagrin Reservation. It was me and Melissa today, and this was our longest hike yet. It was an absolutely beautiful day - around 70 degrees even at midday.

I downloaded a pretty good map from the website. However, the map is definitely lacking in detail around the parking lots, and got confusing over near the nature center where the density of trails was very high. Anyway, once we got on the trails they were pretty easy to follow, with only a couple of exceptions. However, the trails are really only marked at the major trail intersections, making it somewhat ambiguous at intersections with minor trails and with unmarked trails.

Anyway, we parked over at the nature center so we could look around the little ponds that are over there. They are pretty neat - the one was almost covered with lily pads. I used my new binocs to spot a small heron-ish bird, and there was a fun little turtle who kept hiding whenever Melissa tried to take a picture.

Our main path around the park consisted of the Castle Trail, up to the Scenic Loop Trail, (including a brief stint on Squire's Lane Trail), and then down Hemlock trail back to the parking lot. All of the trails were really pretty simlar - well-trodden trails through beech-maple forest with some hemlock groves. Most of the trails were on the edges of ravines with little creeks at the bottom. For the most part, the creeks were very small with very little water flow, but I can imagine they would be a bit more impressive after some good rain or snow-melt. Occasionally, the paths would dip into the ravines and back up, and the paths were well chosen to make for quite reasonable gradients. This added a bit of ruggedness to the trails, but the total elevation change from highest to lowest point was probably less than 200 feet. We saw very little wildlife on the trails, except for frogs and some fish, but we heard some interesting birds, including woodpeckers. For the most part we were alone on the trails and only passed someone occasionally, except there were noticeably more people within about half a mile of any parking lot.