Caldwell Preserve Cincinnati 3/30/2008

A view of one of the streams from a bridge

One of several bridges and a view of some of the "stairs" leading up a hill

I hiked in the Caldwell Preserve, which is a great small park that is one of the Cincinnati city parks. I hiked with the Tri State hiking club, and I hiked about an hour and a half with the group, until I had to head for home at 2:30 PM.

The original land donated to the park in 1915 was donated by J. Nelson Caldwell, who claimed that the land had been first transferred to a member of the Caldwell family in 1796. The land was transferred from John Cleves Symmes, who had received a patent for the land from George Washington. There is some more background information on the history of this area on the City of Cincinnati park page listed further down.

The park has some great overlooks, and a few short steep climbs. We hiked a mix of the trails to make a loop that was somewhere around 2-3 miles in length.

The web page for more information on this park is:

http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/cityparks/pages/-3440-/

You can find a link to a map of the various trails from this site.

The park is really a nice one for its small size. If you are looking for a short 3.5 mile hike with some nice ups and downs, this is a good one to check out. There were plenty of bridges, so it was never necessary to make any wet stream crossings, like in Mt. Airy Forest. The restroom by the parking lot was locked, and there were no trail maps available at the Nature Center at the bin outside. I am not sure what the regular hours are for this being staffed. Fortunately, someone knew the trails pretty well, and since is is a small park with loop trails, it would not have been easy to get lost. To be on the safe side, go to the web page and print out a map ahead of time like I should have done.