HANOVER, Twp. — It’s been a month since high winds and a tornado ripped through the Mohican area, uprooting countless trees and changing the landscape people have grown to love for decades.
“The scenery, the landscape — it’s changed so much. It’s so sad. There are enormous trees that are down,” said Kent Schaffer, a Loudonville resident and years-long member of Mohican-Malabar Bike Club (MMBC).
A 6-mile-long tornado touched down at 11:33 p.m. on June 13 in Butler, the northern part of Richland County, and traveled to Perrysville in Ashland County before becoming more intermittent and entering Mohican State Park, weather officials have said.
Damage from the storm caused the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to close all hiking, biking and bridle trails within Mohican State Park and Mohican-Memorial State Forest.
As of July 11, all hiking trails except Hog Hollow are reopened, according to ODNR.
Mohican-Memorial State Forest Manager Chad Sanders has said the rest of the trails could open by the end of August.
In the meantime, volunteers are chomping at the bit to clear trails themselves.
‘It ain’t gonna look the same’
The mountain biking trail, a 24.5 mile look through the state forest, is only partially open. The 34 miles of bridle trails — 22 at Mohican and another 12 at Malabar Farm State Park — remain closed.
“Closed trails are marked. Thank you for your patience; we are working hard to restore all the trails as quickly as possible,” reads a statement on ODNR’s Mohican State Park website.
Mountain bikers are rejoicing that a four-mile “short loop” reopened on July 10 following a MMBC trail-work day that drew 30 people equipped with chainsaws, loppers and other helpful trail-clearing tools.
Schaffer, who has been a member of the MMBC for around 20 years, said the bike club is pretty small. But the July 11 work day was encouraging because of the amount of help offered by newcomers.
“The turnout was unbelievable,” he said. “We met at 9 a.m. and finished around 1:30 p.m.”
The strategy was to use six people who are state-certified to operate chainsaws on ODNR-managed property to create six separate teams. You must be state-certified to operate a chainsaw on ODNR property.
Each chainsaw operator had up to five people with them clearing underbrush and prepping the trees and logs to be cut and cleared from the trail.
“Our goal was to keep the chainsaw operators moving. So the teams would clear the trees enough to get the chainsaw in, then they’d leapfrog to the next tree,” Schaffer said.
The strategy worked, but there’s still a lot of work to be done on the rest of the trail.
The MMBC group hopes to get the mountain bike trail open out to mile marker eight next. After that, the group will tackle mile marker 15 to the finish.
The worst part involves a section near the Mohican Covered Bridge on Park Road, which forestry officials have restricted to clubs and volunteers as they work to assess the damage.
Bridle groups wait to get their trails reopened — but even when they do reopen, it won’t feel familiar.
“It ain’t gonna look the same. It’s like another world out there,” said Marline Smalley, president of the Wayne County Ohio Horseman’s Council chapter.
The bridle trail system at Mohican has been most ridden in the state for two years in a row, totaling 19,280 miles ridden there just in the last year, Smalley said.
Malabar’s bridle trail system is number 12 in Ohio in terms of miles ridden per year, she said.
“That being said, we have a big job. Because a lot of people like coming here,” she said.
She credited ODNR’s Division of Forestry with the amount of work they’ve accomplished in the last month, saying crews have been hard at work with two bulldozers and six chainsaws nearly every day since the storms.
“After today, there will be about 16 miles of trails cleared in the (Mohican-Memorial State Forest),” Smalley said on July 13.
The OHC chapters in Wayne and Holmes counties, along with a smaller bridle group named Cowboys for Christ are hosting trail-work days on July 14 and 16, though those work days are only available to members of the groups.
“That’s for safety reasons,” she said. “We’ll be fine-tuning jagged things sticking out on the trail. We’ll have some chainsaw people to cut those, the rest of us will be cutting up roots that horses might get hooves stuck in, filling in holes and lopping off anything that might fly in our faces.”
When will the trails reopen?
That’s the question at the front of everyone’s minds — and it depends on who you ask.
Hikers have a network of around 15 miles of trails to use in Mohican State Park, which have been open since July 11, except for Hog Hollow trail — a 2.5 mile trail that connects the Mohican State Park Fire Tower to the Mohican Covered Bridge.
Hikers are also permitted to use mountain bike and bridle trails.
Smalley is hopeful the bridle trails might be ready to ride by the end of this week, depending on how much progress is made during the two planned work days.
Schaffer said they’d be lucky if the mountain bike trails opened by the end of this year.
Sanders broke down the timeline according to trail usage. For horse trails, the Division of Forestry is shooting for an Aug. 1 reopening.
“I think we’ll be able to meet that, no problem,” he said. “And that’s tentative. It would be most of the horse trails open, probably 90%. We might leave some closed indefinitely. But there will be plenty of riding to do in August.”
Mountain biking trails will follow the bridle trails, Sanders said.
“As soon as the horse trails are done, we’ll go over to those (mountain bike) trails. So that will be first or second week of August,” he said.
Hog Hollow trail will be forestry’s next priority. Sanders said he hopes the 2.5 mile trail that connects the Mohican State Park Fire Tower and the Mohican Covered Bridge will be open by the end of August.
“We’re taking it one piece at a time.”
Ryan O’Dell, a Loudonville resident, works as race director for the Mohican 100 mountain bike and running races, among other Ohio mountain bike races through the Ohio Mountain Bike Championship and National Ultra Endurance series.
O’Dell has an OMBC race coming up on October 22 at Mohican State Park. He can only hope the trails will be cleared by then in time for the race.
And the Mohican 100 races, which are slated for May and June next year?
“Most certainly the trail would be open by then,” O’Dell said. “But you know what they say, ‘Men make plans, and God laughs.’”
What to do in the meantime?
Donate.
That’s Schaffer’s answer. Not just money, though you can give money directly to MMBC here.
He said people lending a hand for a few hours on upcoming trail days would be invaluable.
“We’re trying to put together a cluster of trail days so people can look and plan ahead. We gotta stay on top of it, keep moving,” he said. Stay informed of MMBC’s latest news on its Facebook page.
Sanders encouraged people to be patient and to stay off the trails that are still closed.
“Our main priority was safety,” he said in developing a clean-up strategy. “That’s been our number-one concern. We need to provide a safe trail environment. I don’t want to let loose a bunch of volunteers and have someone get injured.
“Some people are dying to help — give us some time to make it safe and you guys can come in and clean it up.”
