Bacon Woods sets the standard for nature trails

Like the valley within which it resides, the Bacon Woods Trail envelopes you ... not harshly, but with a quiet and comforting embrace. Even on the coldest days, it warmly welcomes you, but at the same time, reminds you of what it is to still be wild. The Bacon Woods Trail lies at the north end of Lorain County Metro Park's Vermilion River Reservation, a park that is nearly 100 percent within the shale walls of the Vermilion River valley. It took the river thousands of years to carve out the canyon that would become the park, which in geological time, is but a minute, and while the evidence of this work might assumedly be seen solely in the valley's impressive 100-foot-tall Devonian shale cliffs, it is clearly evident elsewhere, including along the Bacon Woods Trail. In example, a winter view up the eastern slope of the trail's right-hand entrance shows giant, well-worn, sandstone slump rocks. Nearly a mile across the valley there lies a bookend scene. A notable escarpment, or even a natural bridge, once connected the valley's eastern and western walls until additional work by the river eroded its support into collapse. Further, as the trail rises slightly up the slope, the left-hand side remains low and forms a long and distinctive gully that, when the eye connects the gully's vernal pools, reveals itself as an old river channel. During the mid-1800s, did the trail's namesake Benjamin Bacon fish in this iteration of the Vermilion River? Or, maybe it was along the western side of the trail where a channel contained the waters of the Vermilion River until July 4, 1969, when a devastating deluge of over a foot of rain convinced the river to take a new route to Lake Erie … a route it still employs today. But, during floods and ice jam dam events, it isn't hesitant to additionally use its former channels. Speaking of ice, the south side of the largest and oldest trees show giant scars from collisions with massive ice blocks that would occasionally race on winter floodwater well outside of the river channel, and well into the Bacon Woods forest. Like giant angular pinballs, these chunks would crash and gash the forest giants as they would haphazardly pass through the forest. If they became entrapped … still and stranded … they would sit and slowly melt and leave a simple and surprising remnant of their short life -- a thick layer of the sand and shale that made up their bottoms. The cliffs and slopes of the Vermilion River valley send rain and snow melt down toward the river, much of it, however, never makes it there and settles in old river channels and the valley's slumps and floodplains. Thus, the Bacon Woods Trail, not unexpectedly, lives within a very soggy forest. In its early decades, muddy wet feet were a visitor's badge of passage. Today the Bacon Woods Trail is fully graveled and board-walked -- and dry. But within this delivered water is eroded soil, organic material, minerals and nutrients. It's the stuff that rich soil is made of and the plant life of the Bacon Woods doesn't just grow well here, it celebrates! Where so many of today's second-growth woodlands present sparse, or absent, ground cover and shrub layers, the Bacon Woods simply shows off. The show put on by the spring wildflowers contains all of the original cast, and it's a large and diverse cast. Bloodroot, Virginia bluebells, various trilliums, Dutchman's breeches, blue cohosh, wild geranium and cutleaf toothwort join frons of massive ostrich ferns and giant skunk cabbage leaves as the need for solar energy races the expansion of the leaves of the forest's canopy. Trees and shrubs grow in profusion and, more importantly, in diversity. It is almost safe to say that if it grows here, it grows there -- meaning it grows in Bacon Woods. A July 1992 tornado swept through the valley and nearly denuded a portion of the Bacon Woods forest. Always, and necessarily, resilient, it takes a very detailed eye to find any evidence of this event today. Luckily, the massive, hollow sycamore tree that stands guard over the whole of the forest was untouched. As would be expected, wildlife abounds in the Bacon Woods. and does so across the calendar. A winter foray might reveal a maze of mammal and turkey tracks, and a distant scream of a pileated woodpecker. Spring fills the air with sounds as birds and amphibians enter into an audible competition. Summer becomes a-buzz with insects ranging from fluttering butterflies, light shows by fireflies, ebony-jewelwing damselflies and six-spotted tiger beetles vying for sunny spots along the trail, and un-creative katydids trying to deny everything. Autumn highlights the earnestness of squirrels, the benefits of poison ivy berries and the running of steelhead. I cut my naturalist teeth within the comfortable confines of the Bacon Woods Trail. As such, every visit there now is a visit with an old friend … an old confidant and old mentor. Further, the history now displayed there isn't just simply natural history, it is the history … the ghost … of a young naturalist being completely overwhelmed with trying to decipher nature. …and how a simple…yet spectacular…riparian forest led him down a trail of learning…and a career path. In this world of ours, there are many great, and meaningful, trails. Some are near … some are far away. Some have fantastic and iconic features or views that push you forward, and sometimes turn your focus to the destination instead of the journey. Some are long or steep or challenging. Some require equipment for protection or navigation or stability. Some are completely accessible, and some absurdly limit participation. Some are steeped in history or are notable enough to write a book about. The Bacon Woods trail is some of this … and a bit of that … and better at some things than at others. But, all in all, it is one of the most revealing, comfortable and nature-filled trails there is. It is, in my highly skewed opinion, the trail that all others should be compared to. And while it doesn't have a book written about it, it now has a nature column.