Hiking The Horse Run Lake Loop Trail At Jesse Owens State Park

While exploring Jesse Owens State Park near Cumberland, Ohio we decided to check out the four free campgrounds they have. While exploring Sand Hollow Campground, also known as Campground C, we discovered a trailhead and decided to check it out.

The Campground C Loop Trail circles Horse Run Lake, is 2.6 miles long and we hated it!

It’s a primitive trail that gets absolutely no maintenance. The trail is completely overgrown on at least 90% of it and because of this it’s very hard to follow at times.

To follow the trail look for trees with red circles painted on them. There are also trees with red ribbons wrapped around them. We think these were also trail markers, but weren’t for sure.

Slight turns on the trail seemed to be marked with PVC pipes with red tape wrapped around the top. These were greatly needed, because you could get lost easily in the overgrowth not knowing which way the trail continued on.

The first part of the trail is through the woods offering no views or anything cool to check out. After crossing the road the second part of the trail will take you closer to the lake, but don’t expect any views there either.

Occasionally you could see the lake through the branches of the trees, but that was it.

Be prepared to stumble and trip repeatedly over rocks, stumps and tree limbs you can’t see on the trail because of all the brush. I must of almost fell at least thirty times and it sucked.

Also be prepared to get torn up by pricker bushes (I don’t know what they’re really called). Jamey and I both left the trail bleeding. I hate those little devil bushes.

Thoroughly check yourself for ticks when the hike is done. The hubby, dog and I all picked several of the little nasty bugs off us.

Truthfully, avoid all this headache and just skip this trail altogether, because it was absolutely not worth it. I would consider this a moderate trail with quite a bit of ups and downs and it was so humid the morning we went.

We just hated the whole experience and thought it was a waste of our time.

If our dog could talk he would tell you he hated it too.

He hates brush hitting him in the face and that was constantly happening here. The hubby even had to carry him a couple times, because he was getting so frustrated and wouldn’t walk anymore.

Seriously, I rarely regret hiking any trail, but this was the exception and I wish we would of done something else and not wasted our time.

That pic I posted at the beginning of this post is Horse Run Lake and it’s pretty, but you can get that pic from the parking lot with barely any walking required.

I didn’t take many pictures during our hike, because there wasn’t anything to take pictures of. It was just boring, except for this cute little box turtle we found that I managed not to trip over.

On a side night, we really liked the campground.

No amenities our cell service here and the sites aren’t that level, but it’s easy access to the lake for kayaking and fishing. Each site has a firepit and picnic table and most have enough privacy between sites.

The campground is geared toward tent and car camping though and I don’t think anything over twenty-five feet would fit in most spots.