Miami Whitewater Forest: Badlands Trail 4/6/2008

Badlands Trail

View from the Badlands Trail

This is the point where you can choose the Inner or Outer Badlands Trail Loop

Today the temperature was around 65 degrees F, and sunny. This was the best day of the year so far for being outdoors. Today the trip was to Miami Whitewater Forest, and the first trail walked was the inner loop of the Badlands Trail. I had hoped to walk the Oak Leaf Trail and the adjacent Parcours Trail. I am not sure if it was caused by the recent flooding in the area, but both trails were closed for repairs, and the restroom was closed. There was a porta potty next to the restroom that is at the parking lot by the Oak Leaf Trail. The water fountain outside the restroom was also shut off. Fortunately, I had brought plenty of water, and could use other restroom facilities in the park. Since I could not walk these two trails, I crossed the road to walk the Badlands Trail, which was open. It did look like there were some trees that had fallen across the trail, but they had been cut through.

There are two options with the Badlands Trail. There is an inner loop that is about 0.8 miles in length, and an outer loop that is listed at 1.6 miles. Sinced I was with the kids, I concentrated on the inner loop, so I did not wear them out too much. The trail is listed as a Level 4, which makes it somewhat of a moderate hike.

To find more information and directions to Miami Whitewater Forest, the link to the Hamilton County Park site is:

http://www.hamiltoncountyparks.org/parks/miami.htm

A nice PDF map of the park and trails is at:

http://www.hamiltoncountyparks.org/aboutus/mwf_map.pdf

I added a small Google Map, but there is not much detail since this trail is heavily wooded and difficult to make out from the aerial views. It might help pinpoint the location and shows a little about what the area looks like. This should compliment the PDF map above.

Google Map for Badlands Trail