Ohio Rails to Trails – Tri-county Triangle Trail

Trail	Tri-county Triangle Trail
Location	Chillicothe to Washington Court House, in Ross, Fayette, & Highland counties
Length	Chillicothe to Austin-17 miles, Greenfield to Wash C.T.-13.5 miles
Surface	Asphalt
Condition	Fairly Good
Restroom sites	3
Drinking water sites	2
Food accessibility	Minimal until near Chillicothe, then convenience stores near trail
Traffic	Light at crossings until near Chillicothe
Bike shops
Highlights	Nice views on the rural sections
Parking access	In Frankfort, near Salt Lick, and in Chillicothe
Visited	May 13, 08

Commentary:

The map for this trail from the web site is so poor I had trouble finding a place to park! However, once I found a parking location, I enjoyed riding this trail. I would suggest to the webmaster to find and post a much more detailed map.

I found parking on the edge of Frankfort, at the north edge of the Bridge, in front of a water treatment plant. This is an official parking lot for the trail with a sign about the trail located here, but there are no facilities here. But, taking Walnut Street directly opposite this small parking lot, to the West, is a community park with porta-potties, and water.

I didn’t have the time to bicycle the whole trail, but I traveled east from Frankfort towards Chillicothe. I’ve ridden many different trails over the last few years yet I have never seen a trail with so much debris! There was plenty of tree debris, leaves, twigs, and such. However, it seemed as though parts of this trail were under flooding recently from the nearby Paint Creek in several places. I know it can’t be easy keeping a whole trail clean, but other trail organizations are able to keep trails clean, so maybe just double-checking certain locations would work. Since only certain sections were littered badly, and other sections relatively clean, a hot spot clean up would suffice.

The trail is asphalt, and is in fairly good condition, the typical cracking with tar repair is plainly evident, but at each bridge, the asphalt does not flush well with each end of the bridge. At each transition, the asphalt is usually depressed below the bridge level, causing quite a bump while cycling.

There is parking, though not specifically for the trail on Sulphur Lick Rd, at the Adena National Park. There are restrooms here, open only during business hours, but the lot is used quite a bit by cyclists. As you travel East on the trail, the trail itself takes a jog, South on T-114, possibly called Cattail road or Maple Groove road, but shortly you rejoin the actual trail and continue east.

This is a nice rural trail but as you close in on Chillicothe, there are more roads to cross and traffic is more of a concern while crossing. I look forward to riding more of this trail, and especially look forward to the completion that will allow a cyclist to ride a loop, extremely rare on trails!

Definitely a trail worth visiting.

www.tricotrail.tripod.com

good cycling

-Mark