Every Trail Project- Slate Run

Well, I am clearly very, very behind on these posts, but just as an update, as of today, I have about 4 miles left to run and I have finished the rest! So, it's likely that I'll be making these posts a bit into October to make sure I give account of all our wonderful Metro Parks. 

That brings me to Slate Run Metro Park. I had been to this park one time before to run a race, but had never really explored it beyond that. I have really been missing out! This park is all the way in Canal Winchester, so it's not the closet park to me, but it was well worth the trip and I'll be going back for sure. Slate Run also has a living historical farm, so if you have kids, this is a must visit!

This park has 8 named trails that are open to public foot traffic - Bobolink Grassland, Covered Bridge, Five Oaks, Kokomo, Lake, Sassafras, Shagbark and Sugar Maple. The majority of these trails are crushed gravel, dirt and grass. The Lake Trail is the only paved trail. There is also some boardwalk on the Kokomo trail. 

For this run, I was fortunate to have my wife drop me off at one end of the park and pick me up on the other, so this was a point to point run for me. You can see the route I ran at Slate here. I started off at the Shady Grove Picnic Area which is the trailhead for the Five Oaks Trail. Five Oaks is a crushed gravel trail through the forest and has a few ascents and descents along the way. After doing the full loop, I got onto the Sugar Maple Trail to connect me to the Buzzard's Roost Picnic Area to run the Lake Trail, Covered Bridge Trail and Shagbark Trail. The Lake Trail is paved and took me on a little loop out into Buzzard's Roost Lake. Through a few connector trails I made my way to the Covered Bridge Trail which is a loop that connects to the Shagbark Trail loop. Both of these trails are crushed gravel for the most part.

Running across the covered bridge on the Covered Bridge Trail

Buzzard's Roost Lake from the Lake Trail

From the Buzzard's Roost Area, I headed back to the Sugar Maple Trail which is also crushed gravel with some dirt sections, all through forest. A spur of this trail will take you to the Slate Run Living Historical Farm. The Sugar Maple Trail connects to the Bobolink Grassland Trail which takes you to the Slate Run Wetlands Wildlife Refuge area. I finished the Sugar Maple loop and headed onto the grass trail that makes up the Bobolink Grassland Trail. This trail goes through tall grassland which is a huge contrast to the forest I had run through for most of the first half of this run. There is a cool lookout point on this trail where you look out onto the wetlands area to see where you are running down to if you continue on this trail. 

From the lookout point on the Bobolink Grassland Trail. You can see the wetlands behind me.

The Bobolink Trail is a point to point trail, so if you run this trail and need to get back to your car, you'll need to turn around and run it again which is a 3 mile round trip. On the other end of that trail is the Kokomo Wetland Trail which runs through wetlands preserve. The trail is mostly grass with a boardwalk section. It was pretty dry when I ran here, but it was easy to imagine how wonderful this place looks when the wetlands are...wet. 

Running on the boardwalk section on the Kokomo Trail

This point to point run ended up being just about 9.5 miles, so I was glad to have my wife pick me up on the other end. I really loved running here! The Five Oaks/Sugar Maple combination is probably something I'll add to my normal rotation. This is a great park for trail runners and I'd highly recommend it! 

As always - get outside, stay healthy and find joy!