Today was another great hike. I was worried when I went into work and it was lightly raining, but by the time 11:45 rolled around, the rain had gone away and the sun had come out. One of the morning classes ran over slightly, so we got started about five minutes late, but that worked out fine.

We went down into the Valley, near Boston Store, to the Stanford House and the associated Stanford Trail. The Stanford Trail runs up and down several large hills and has several small bridges to cross. It eventually leads all the way up to Brandywine Falls, which are the best waterfalls I have seen in Ohio (although I hear there are some spectacular ones in the the southeast of Ohio). The hike was a bit slick, as the trail was wet with packed snow, and sometimes ice, but I was fine since I use “Yaktrax” traction guides on my shoes. Some of the students had some trouble with their boots, but no one got hurt (although we had people slipping a fair amount). The day was sunny and very warm (mid-forties).

The hike was again very pretty. I had never hiked the Stanford Trail, and it is a great trail. The hills are steep in places, but it makes for dramatic scenery. I have been to Brandywine Falls before, but hadn’t seen the falls so full with snow melt-off before. I had hoped to hike down to the river-level observation deck, but it was closed because of snow and ice. Still, we were able to see the falls pretty well from the upper platform and trail.

After the falls, we took a brief detour to walk on the newly completed paved Bike and Hike extension that runs through the woods. I wanted the kids to know about the trail since it is a paved trail that is about thirty miles long, and is a great trail for bikers.

We headed back to the Brandywine Gorge Trail, which took us a down a steep and icy incline to river-level. We crossed the newly completed footbridge (you used to have to cross on fording stones), but stopped long enough for the requisite group photo. The trail then looped back to the Stanford Trail, and we headed back to the bus after a good, but tiring, hike.

Mer had a field trip today in her Italian class – they headed up to Cleveland’s Little Italy for lunch. Mer was joined by three former students and a former CVCA parent, as well as her full class. They got started about forty minutes late because of waiting on a late morning class trip to return, but they had a successful trip once they got underway. Mer and her party had to wait on their entrees, so they got back to the bus five or ten minutes later than everyone else, but Mer said the food was excellent. Both of our trips came back with everyone and no injuries, so it was a successful day!