Hune Covered Bridge / Erie Bluffs County Park
Driving from Summersville, WV to Mentor, OH | Camping at Hune Covered Bridge | Hiking in Erie Bluffs County Park | June 2024
On Saturday morning, we rose early and packed up our campsite. All we had planned for today was a lot of driving across West Virginia, but we wanted to get an early start. As we returned to US-19, we stopped at an overlook over Summersville Lake, a spot we had passed twice now and I had been wanting to stop. We got out to walk around and enjoy the view, then got back on the road.
For today’s drive, we took US-19 up to I-79, then took WV-16 all the way up to St. Marys on the Ohio River. The road was long, curvy, and hilly, and took us all morning to get across. And yet, even when we felt like we were so remote and far from any town, there were private residences along the road the whole way up. Even if we wanted to stop, we couldn’t, because most of this land is privately owned and there was nothing we could do. But hey, at least we got a remote county that we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise?
When we made it to the Ohio River, we decided to follow the river on WV-2 North to New Martinsville and cross into Ohio here. This got us 2 more WV counties, and was a much more pleasant and scenic drive than before. We crossed into Ohio, then took county roads into Wayne National Forest. We had a bit of trouble navigating with limited cell service, but managed to find our way to OH-26. While driving through the forest, we crossed paths with the North Country Trail, which just seemed bizarre at this point that anyone would consider this the “North Country”. We decided that if we were to ever backpack that trail, we would simply walk along the shore of Lake Erie when we came to Ohio because the trail has no business going so far South. Sorry Ohio, we’re just not that into you.
Besides that trail, there wasn’t much we could do hiking wise in this area, and it was getting pretty hot. We decided to stop to see the Knowlton Covered Bridge, which is one of Ohio’s longest covered bridges. But when we arrived, we found it to be under construction, which was much needed as it has apparently been falling apart over the last few years. So instead, we made our way to our chosen campground for tonight, the Hune Bridge Campground, which was right next to Hune Covered Bridge. You can no longer drive across the bridge, so we crossed a bridge North of there and made our way down to the campground. There are only 5 sites here and it’s considered a low use site, but after enjoying a few hours to ourselves here a big group showed up and had a party at the site next to ours. Oh well, we still had a nice evening here, and we could barely hear them once we were all closed up in the van with the fan running. The bridge itself is also very cute, and while it’s closed to traffic, we could still walk across and enjoy it from both sides.
The next morning, we had another early start so we could drive the remaining 3 hours to Curtis’ next assignment. We drove Southwest to Marietta, then took I-77 all the way up to Mentor, Ohio on Lake Erie, our home for the week. Our first stop was to pick up a rental car. We had a bit of a conundrum, because we needed to get the car before noon, but couldn’t check into the hotel until 3, and it was gearing up to be a hot and humid day. After getting the car, we drove both vehicles to the hotel, grabbed snacks and supplies from the van, then looked for a spot to spend the next few hours. We assumed that being on the lake would be the coolest, so we decided to drive up to Erie Bluffs County Park which fit our requirements of being dog friendly, on the coast, and even had some hiking.
When we arrived, we set off on the trail for a little loop hike. Once we were in the shade of the trees, it felt considerably cooler than it had in Mentor. We walked to a little overlook of the lake, sat on the bench and enjoyed the silence for a while. Then we continued on the trail, Curtis found a geocache, and we made our way over to the tower. Curtis and I took turns climbing to have higher up views of the lake, and of the power plant where he’d be working that week. After that, we made our way down to the beach. We found a shady place to sit, had a light lunch, and enjoyed the cool air and the light waves of the lake. We may make fun of Ohio a lot, but we managed to have a really nice afternoon here. We still don’t think it’s part of the Midwest though.
Finally, we made our way back to the hotel and checked in for the week. After moving in and getting Charlotte situated, Curtis and I walked over to Azteca Mexican Restaurant for tacos and margaritas (of which we maybe ordered too much because Curtis didn’t believe me when I said I thought one marg flight would be enough for us). We were excited to be in a new place, which wasn’t too bad since it wasn’t actually in Cleveland, and very thankful to be in a hotel because the heat was only going to get worse this week!
