ironton rail trail

sign on the trail. laughed my butt off.

Today we tried the Ironton Rail Trail (IRT). I'm wondering if it is totally a rail trail or if someone was fudging the course. Railroads don't run in circles.

We parked in the Whitehall Parkway. It was very overgrown and had I not know there were rail trails, I probably would have left. To our left was the handicap accessible trail. It was now a foot wide. Clearly brush cutting needs to be done.

So we went the other direction on what looked like a trail but it got narrower and narrower. It did, however, lead us to the IRT. This portion was gravel. It was nice and wide and easy to walk on. It had lots and lots of distractions. Go to my Webshots album to see more. (Today's adventure starts at the bottom of pg 9.) The first half of the IRT loop, which is paved, took awhile. I must have drove Bonnie crazy stopping so often to take pictures.

stop. look listen. following orders. (map between my legs.)

But I digress. We left the Whitehall Parkway and went under MacArthur Road where we soon met the IRT loop. The loop is 5.5 miles and travels thru Copley and Hokey.  In Coplay there were about eight 19th century-limestone kilns. Beautiful but I fear they might be crumbling—there was fencing around them. I actually read something about that earlier in the week in the Morning Call. The county has no money for preservation, so they'll let them crumble. It's sad.

We left Sharon in Hokey. She couldn't go any further and went on. The last mile was tough. We had gone nearly 8 miles.

The biggest adventure was when we had to go find Sharon. Let's just say the streets on trail map were not accurate. Oops.