Monday, Nov. 09, 2009

Unusual area along Ohio River rich in nature preserves, ancient earthwork at western boundary of Appalachians

WEST UNION, Ohio - Adams County doesn't look or feel like other Ohio counties.

It is a slice of Kentucky's bluegrass country - with an open, airy feel unlike much of southern Ohio because of its unique geology. Early settlers referenced the region's bald hills or "buffalo beats."

Tucked along the Ohio River about 60 miles east of Cincinnati and at the western edge of the Appalachians, Adams County has some great outdoor attractions: the Serpent Mound, the 14,000-acre Edge of Appalachia Preserve and eight state nature preserves.

My most recent excursion into Adams County took me to Lynx Prairie within the Edge of Appalachia Preserve and to Chaparral Prairie State Nature Preserve.

The showcase Richard and Lucille Durrell Edge of Appalachia Preserve is one of the most biologically diverse collections of natural systems in the Midwest, with rugged woodlands, prairie openings, cliffs, waterfalls, giant promontories and clear streams.

It is the largest privately owned nature preserve in the Midwest and is a partnership between the Nature Conservancy and the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal.

Three areas within the preserve, with its 135 rare plants and animals, are open to the public: Buzzardroost Rock with its up-high views, the Wilderness with its deep woods and the biologically important Lynx Prairie.

The 500-acre Lynx Prairie is known for its unique and beautiful cedar glades or eastern alkaline barrens with its thin rocky soils. Three loop trails that together stretch 1.5 miles lead through Lynx Prairie, the first tract of the Edge preserve to be acquired 50 years ago.

Visitors will find 10 miniature prairies, surrounded by forests of Virginia pines and red cedar. They are mostly flat, narrow and wet in places. They are dominated by big and little bluestem and Indian grass. The grassland community features a number of rare plants for Ohio.

Each prairie patch is different. Some are dominated by prairie dock, another by coneflowers; another by rare Western sunflowers; another with blazing stars. Rare plants include blue-hearts, Texas sandwort, crested coralroot, crane-fly orchid, dwarf hackberry and spotted wintergreen.

Lynx Prairie with its dolomite and shale outcroppings honors the work of ecologist E. Lucy Braun (1889-1971), a University of Cincinnati professor who first explored Adams County for its rare plants.

The prairies here are at the eastern edge of the prairies that once dominated the Midwest.

The preserve's original 42 acres were purchased in 1959 by the Nature Conservancy, the national land-conservation group, with financial help from Cincinnati garden clubs. In 1967, the prairie patches at Lynx Prairie were designated a federal Natural Landmark.

The prairies are at their colorful best in late summer and early fall. By August, prairie grasses up to 9 feet tall and tall flowers dominate Lynx Prairie.

The most difficult part of the hike was finding where the trails into Lynx Prairie began, at the rear of the cemetery behind the East Liberty Community Church. Look in the southeast corner of the cemetery.

There are no bathrooms, picnic tables or drinking water. Visitors are asked to stay on the trails to protect the delicate habitat.

To get to Lynx Prairie, head east on state Route 125 from West Union. Proceed 7.8 miles to the crossroads hamlet of Lynx. Turn right and head south on Tulip Road. After 0.3 miles, turn left on Prairie Road into the church parking lot.

The Cincinnati museum and the Nature Conservancy have built a new visitor center, the Eulett Center, for the Edge preserve. It is west of Lynx Prairie on a bluff overlooking Ohio Brush Creek.

Now the Nature Conservancy wants to connect the Edge with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources' 63,000-acre Shawnee State Forest to the east by acquiring an additional 5,881 acres. That would create an unbroken forest of 83,000 acres, the largest contiguous forest in Ohio.

The project has been dubbed the Sunshine Corridor after a local ridge that traverses the gap between the conserved areas. The Nature Conservancy recently got a $750,000 Clean Ohio Fund to purchase the first 654 acres along the Sunshine Corridor. But it will take years to complete the project and will cost about $12 million, the group says.

The Edge's Buzzardroost Rock is a 465-acre tract with great vistas from atop a cliff 300 feet above Ohio Brush Creek. It's a moderate three-mile round trip from the trailhead off state Route 125 between West Union and Lynx.

The 2.5-mile yellow-blazed loop trail at The Wilderness is one of the best day hikes in Ohio. It's heavily wooded with limestone cliffs, waterfalls, spring wildflowers and prairie openings.

For more information, contact the Edge of Appalachia Preserve, 4274 Waggoner Riffle Road, West Union 45693, 937-544-2188, http://www.cincymuseum.org; or the Nature Conservancy at 6375 Riverside Drive, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, 614-717-2770, http://www.nature.org/ohio. I headed about five miles north of West Union to find state-managed Chaparral Prairie that covers 66 acres of prairie, forest and old farm fields.

It is an outstanding example of a cedar barren prairie, complete with common and uncommon flowers and butterflies. Abundant wildflowers include prairie dock, whorled rosinweed and spiked blazing-star.

It was purchased by the state in 1985 and is home to 14 rare or endangered plant species including spider milkweed, prairie false indigo and pink milkwort. The prairie also features one of Ohio's most extensive populations of rattlesnake-master with its white prickly-shaped flower.

The preserve is known for its dry, nutrient-poor soils that often erode off steep slopes.

Other state nature preserves in Adams County are Johnson Ridge, Shoemaker, Whipple, Davis Memorial, Strait Creek Prairie Bluffs (partly in Pike County), Adams Lake Prairie, and Kamama Prairie.

For information, write to the Ohio Division of Natural Areas and Preserves, 2045 Morris Road, Building F-1, Columbus 43229, 614-265-6453, http://www.ohiodnr.com/dnap. The 1,348-foot-long Serpent Mound off state Route 73 north of Peebles remains Ohio's biggest mystery and one of its most special attractions.

The ancient earthwork is the largest and finest serpent effigy in the United States and one of Ohio's only effigy mounds. It is a National Historic Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places.

No one is sure which ancient people built it or why. The grass-covered mound - it appears to be in the shape of an undulating snake with a spiral-coiled tail - sits atop a plateau 90 feet above wooded Ohio Brush Creek.

The mound, managed since Aug. 1 by the nonprofit Arc of Appalachia group, is 2 to 6 feet in height and from 20 to 25 feet in width as it stretches and roils nearly a quarter-mile.

There is no evidence of the Indians who created it burying their dead on the Serpent Mound. They were buried in other nearby mounds.

The head of the snake is aligned to the summer solstice sunset and the coils may point to the winter solstice sunrise and the equinox sunrise.

For more information, write to Serpent Mound, 3850 State Route 73, Peebles, OH 45660; 937-587-2796. A Web site is under construction at http://www.arcofappalachia.org. The site is open daylight to dusk daily. The museum is closed until next spring. Admission is free but there is a $7 parking fee.

Bob Downing: bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com

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