Winter Backpacking Mohican State Park, OH

Welcome back for another adventure on Bacon N Backpacking! This video was recorded at Mohican State Park in my home state of Ohio. It feels good to be releasing a Mohican video for the first time in almost two years! The Park and Pack campsites have been closed for over a year and a half due to storm damage from a tornado that swept through the forest, preventing us from backpacking there.

This trip highlights some of the popular scenery of the local hiking trails. We parked at the dam to start our trek, and soon made our way to Little and Big Lyons falls. I was hoping to catch a massive ice pile under Big Lyons Falls as I did a few years back, but unfortunately there was only some minor icicles at the top of the waterfalls. We pressed on past the falls and made our way down to the Mohican River.

Some of the most beautiful hiking in Mohican is along the river on both sides. We approached the covered bridge over the river, then made our way to the mountain bike trail. This trail lead us deeper into the forest along some service roads. We also caught a nice surprise, receiving some moderate snowfall for about 30 minutes, despite not being forecasted. We continued on towards camp.

Right before camp we approached Pine Run. For anyone wishing to visit Park and Pack campsites 1-3, be wary that Pine Run is a considerable water crossing during all seasons. We found the water to be about 18" deep across the trail, so we bushwhacked into the woods to find a shallower crossing, leading us to campsite one.

As usual, we set up our shelters first after arriving at camp. With temperatures between 30-35 degrees the entire trip, having the correct camping gear is important. I was warm and cozy in my Warbonnet Blackbird hammock, insulated by a Diamondback 20-degree top quilt, Wooki 20-degree underquilt and protected from the elements by a Hammock Gear dyneema tarp.

Sara slept in the Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo tent, with a Warbonnet 0-degree top quilt and TWO sleeping pads, the Nemo Tensor and a Thermarest foam pad. Sara typically sleeps very cold, but managed to stay comfortable with this winter setup.

The only downsides of winter backpacking are the lack of daylight and obviously, the cold. We decided to make fire a priority so we could stay comfortable around camp lounging in our Helinox Chair Zero's. I used the Silky Pocketboy saw and Mora Garberg knife to process the very wet wood we found around camp. We managed to build a fire on the first try and enjoyed that over the course of three hours before heading off to bed.

Day two we woke to unexpected snowfall and began to retrace our steps back to the car. Overall, this was a short trip, logging only 11 miles total. With that being said, it was great to be back at Mohican and Sara finally got a chance to try our her Outdoor Vitals CS-40 backpack! As always, thank you for watching and please consider subscribing to the channel!

Check out the gear I brought on this trip!
https://lighterpack.com/r/0s0c42

Download the GPX file below to plan your own trip!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1etUm...