Wayne National Forest--Lamping Homestead Recreation Area

About this Location

This secluded Lamping Homestead Recreation Area was once the farmstead of the Lamping family. The Lamping family homesteaded this area in the 1800s. Life must have been very hard for these early pioneers. A small cemetery nearby is a testimony to the hardships of trying to raise a family on these early homesteads. Today the area offers camping, picnicking, fishing, canoeing, and a scenic hiking trail. The site has six walk-in campsites, eight picnic sites, and a picnic shelter. There are two loop trails for hiking, one at 3.5 miles and the other at 1.5 miles. A 2-acre pond at the site is stocked with bluegill, bass, and catfish.

About Wayne National Forest

See all hotspots at Wayne National Forest

The Wayne National Forest is located in the hills of southeastern Ohio. This small national forest, in the heart of the heavily populated Midwest, covers almost a quarter million acres of Appalachian foothills. The Wayne is divided into three blocks administered by two Ranger Districts at Athens and Ironton. A field office is also located east of Marietta.

Visitors to national forest lands are welcome to camp, hike, hunt, and fish. The Forest boundaries surround a checkerboard pattern of ownership, with public and private ownership interspersed. There are over 300 miles of trails in the Forest for hiking, all-terrain vehicle (ATV) riding, mountain biking, or horseback riding.

Notable Trails

Lamping Homestead Trail
The AllTrails website has a description and map of a hike at Lamping Homstead.

This is a loop trail that is comprised of two separate paths and it may just be one of the best hikes in the state. It is a secluded and history-drenched excursion. The trail begins at the two-acre Lamping Pond before winding through a white pine plantation and a beech-maple forest. It has a 300’ vertical rise that passes caves and rock outcroppings. You don’t have to veer far off the trail to see the history of the site, including the Lamping family cemetery that dates back to the 1800s.

The hike begins near the 2-acre stocked Lamping Pond where the Lamping family had settled in the 1800s. You can hike to the top of a scrubby Indian mound where family members are buried. The eroded tombstones are difficult to read, but deaths date to the 1850s and 1860s. About a dozen stones are behind a rusted fence, including those of several Lamping children.

You can access the family cemetery off the main trail just southeast of the pond. It actually veers off the dam that creates the lake. It’s an easy climb.

You’ll see no evidence of the family’s homestead or farm buildings. There is one interpretive sign in the parking lot. No one is sure where the family came from or where they went after they left Monroe County, officials said. Washington Township had only 533 residents in 1840.

The main trail begins on the other side of the pond and cuts through the picnic area. You will hike through a white pine plantation and into a beech-maple forest. Ravines are numerous.

The trail crosses hills, goes down and up in hollows, across ridgelines, and along the side of steep hills. The area is heavily wooded with small streams crossing the trail. If the leaves have fallen, you may get glimpses of the Clear Fork of the Little Muskingum River.

The north-south loop, marked by white plastic diamonds, is also open to mountain bikers. The trail has a vertical rise of nearly 300 feet. It is a rocky and rooty trail that can be wet and slippery, even in the dry months.

The trail is two connected loops of 1.5 and 3.5 miles.

Content from Official Website, 10 Best Hikes in Ohio (RootsRated), Akron Beacon Journal, and Wayne National Forest website