A Ghost Town, Cowboys and Caves; and It's only Day 2

Horseback spelunking in Southeastern Ohio

Day 2 —  After a 3-hour drive through the heart of West Virginia, we crossed the impressive Ohio River and quickly turned north.  Not far into the Buckeye State, we found ourselves on a super windy road with no cell service and directions that pegged our turns to a general store I’m pretty sure was called “Dickless” and a graveyard.  An hour of this found us on a rutted gravel road with absolutely not an inch of room to pull off if a car were to come from the other direction.

I guess that worry wasn’t justified, since, when we got to the end of the road, we realized it was actually a ghost town.  Let me set the stage – kind of hokey, western-esque buildings scattered around a dusty field with a few empty horse trailers and campers clustered on one side.  That’s it.  Not a horse or human to be found.

Starving and tired, we took the boys out of the trailer, claimed a couple of pole corrals and, having hayed and watered them, sat on our tailgate for lunch. 

As we ate, the camp slowly came to life.  First a mom and her son road out of the woods on two horses that looked like they were straight out of a movie – a tricolor pinto and a palomino.  Then, a guy pulled in on a Harley and parked next to a deserted trailer.  He opened up the door and out came the requisite friendly camp dog.  Somewhat reassured that the place wasn’t out of business, we tacked up and went for a ride.  It was a beautiful afternoon and our lodging would settle itself on our return – either someone would be there to let us into our reserved primitive cabin or we’d pitch our tent.

Elkins Creek is adjacent to Wayne National Forest and we picked the smallest loop from the map given the boys had already stood through a 4-hour trailer ride.  That loop, which was dwarfed by all the other trails shown on the map, took us three hours to complete.  And what a ride it was – some really nicely graded tracks but also mud galore, steep climbs and descents, rocky patches and caves. 

Now, anyone who has spent time in the mountains of the East won’t be surprised to hear that we have caves.  Something to do with the interplay of the limestone (vs. the granite of the west) and water just makes these super interesting tunnels and caverns with intricate formations.  Still, my experience has been that those caverns are way underground and you have to go down into them through narrow little shafts.  So, I was surprised to find our trail dropping down a steep and muddy ledge to wind under the lip of a cave.  And, frankly, so were the boys. G-man was in the lead and decided to ignore Kurt’s kicks and back into Juneau’s chest just as I was fishing for my phone to take a picture.  What resulted with a bit of a melee that ended with me in the lead and Kurt taking pictures.

That was our first cave, but by no means our last.  By the time we’d crossed our fourth cave mouth, our bone-tired boys didn’t flinch and G-man was in full forward mode, wanting only to get home.

When we pulled back into camp, it was a changed place.  Riders dressed in full western regalia were unsaddling their horses and mules after a day of exploring the forest.  Fires were smoldering between the campers and a group of women on fancy saddlebreds were promenading back and forth across that dusty field at the center of camp.  The tack shop was open and adorable.  Our cabin was open and not so primitive.  And, hot water waited in some pretty nice ‘filly’ and ‘colt’ labeled bath houses.

We unsaddled and washed a few buckets of mud off the boys, cracked two beers and settled in for a great evening only regretting that we’d booked only a night in Elkins Creek in our rush to get to the ‘Wild West’ experience that apparently was ready to be had in southeastern Ohio.

If you want to learn more about Elkins Creek Horse Camp https://www.elkinscreekhorsecamp.com/