3 Best Hiking Trails in Columbus, OH

“Sharon Woods is a 761-acre ideal destination for having a great time with family and friends. The trail combines forests and fields with towering oak, hickory, and beech trees and an 11-acre lake. The total length of the trail is 3.9 miles long, which is generally considered an easy route. The elevation gain of the trail is 141 feet, and it is a loop trail. Numerous seasonal ponds offer valuable spring breeding habitats for amphibians and other wildlife. The park features spacious playgrounds for kids and dog-friendly trails. Sharon Woods ensures a fantastic photo opportunity and a wide range of animals throughout the park. The park also allows dogs in leash areas.”

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“Blacklick Woods Metro Park is a 643-acre park that is a great spot to have a beautiful view of a variety of songbirds, waterfowl, and other wildlife. The park includes six hiking trails. There are plenty of parking spaces, and the trails are excellent and extensive enough to accommodate a vast number of people. This is one of Central Ohio's best remaining beech-maple forests and a buttonbush marsh. Blacklick Woods Metro Park's forest area is laced with trails that wind through a swamp forest. The trails include woods, fields, seasonal swamp ponds, a small prairie, and a golf course. There are huge picnic tables and restroom facilities for visitors' comfort. This park is pet-friendly.”

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“Blendon Woods Metro Park is a 653-acre park that offers a waterfowl refuge, a nature center, disc golf, and ice skating. The total length of the trail is 2.0 miles, and the elevation gain of the trail is 141 feet. It is a loop-type trail. The trail features elegant stream-cut ravines surrounded by beech-maple and oak-hickory woods with exposed ripple rock sandstone and open fields. Blendon Woods Metro Park is also a perfect place to have a beautiful view of songbirds, fowl, and other wildlife. The 118-acre Walden Waterfowl Preserve, with its 11-acre Thoreau Dam, provides a sanctuary for hundreds of birds, wetlands, and other wildlife. The park also features two elevated shelters for watching waterfowl, with spotting scopes.”

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