From 1827 to 1913 the 44 locks along the Ohio & Erie Canal lowered and raised boats, filled with goods and people, a total of 395' in elevation between Cleveland and Akron.
The Towpath Trail follows the historic route of the Ohio & Erie Canal. Before the canal was built, Ohio was a sparsely settled wilderness where travel was difficult and getting crops to market was nearly impossible. The canal, built between 1825 and 1832, provided a successful transportation route from Cleveland, on Lake Erie, to Portsmouth, on the Ohio River. The canal opened up Ohio to the rest of the settled eastern United States.
Source: The Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail
We started our hike in Akron, at Lock 15. Across from the lock sits the restored Mustill Store where canal travelers stopped to buy their provisions.
During our hike we learned about the history of the locks and the people who passed through. From the early settlers to the prehistoric Native Americans who
traveled the rivers to harvest wild food and hunt.
After a couple hours of hiking in the blistering heat the path opened up unexpectedly to a main street. The towpath continued on the sidewalk next to the cars which zoomed by. As we walked along the path and past the car wash we ruminated about how horribly hot it was, especially since we were surrounded by hot pavement which seemed to channel and soak up all the sun's heat. Looking across the street we saw a sign and a building for Scorchers Draft House. Pinching ourselves and deciding that it wasn't a mirage we quickly realized that a cold beer would be the best thing in the world.
We chuckled as we sat at the bar in the air conditioning, sipping a cold brew,
the sweat on our bodies evaporating. I asked my brother if we should have another beer. He
reminded me that we still had 12 miles to hike that day! That pretty much answered my question. We continued on.
We eventually arrived at our destination for the night; The Stanford Hostel.
The hostel is a fully restored, built in the 1830's, farm home which was converted into a hostel.
I was pleasantly surprised with the accommodations. Glenn and I had our choice from about 6 rooms that, for the most part, either had 1 or 2 bunk beds in each.
The kitchen was a large industrial sized kitchen. About 6 large tables sat in the dining room. It was well kept and clean. It felt good to finally arrive.
We awoke Sunday to sunshine streaming into the room. As we were happily dining on our breakfast of bagels, Romanian cream cheese,
salami, and cans of mandarin oranges, a nice woman asked if we wanted to take with us some of the apple streudel she just bought at the bakery.
Who were we to refuse!
Sunday seemed a bit more grueling as most of the trail was in the sun. I kept expecting and hoping, as we took each bend in the trail,
that the path would veer into the woods and shade. But, alas. It was not to be. It had to have been around 90 sweaty degrees.
In the last leg of the trip, after about 5 hours, we stopped at the Canal Visitors Center; which I believe used to be a general store. A handful of volunteers, dressed in period garb, were performing the lock demonstrations at one of the last fully functional lock that remains. It was nice seeing a lock in action. The boats going through the locks took 20 minutes each time, and they had to go through that 44 times from Akron to Cleveland.
The canal towpath hike was a good hike. We got to stretch the legs out as well as learn something about Ohio's past.