TigerQuilter: Our Short Vacation to Lake Hope part 2

Ok on our 1st day we drove to the Lake and on the way tried to find the Iron furnaces at Vintion Furnace State forest. (it's off of state route 50 near McArthur Ohio (http://forestry.ohiodnr.gov/vintonfurnace) and failed. On day 3 we decided to first see if we could find an old train tunnel on the Moonville trail and then return to Vinton Furance to try again.
Moonville trail is suppose to go from Zaleski Ohio to Mineral Ohio , In reality it is sections of trails because the old rail line it follows crossed Racoon Creek several times in this 16 mile stretch and the bridges are long gone. They are slowly replacing the bridges but at a snail's pace. https://www.moonvilletunnel.net/
There are 2 tunnels on the trail. One the Moonville tunnel is the most well known and we have been to that one several times. Once on a memorable hike with a park naturalist where I ended up hip deep in Racoon Creek wearing my NEW hiking boots. Last time we were there , we were able to drive to a small parking area and walk a short distance to the Moonville tunnel, much less adventurous but also much drier. King Switch tunnel is less well known, I only heard about it a few years ago when I looked a trail map. Thankfully with Roy's phone hanging in the window at the cabin we had a wifi hot spot to look up King Switch tunnel and got some good directions and I downloaded a map to my phone. because once we left the cabin our phones had no signal. So finding the trail was not difficult. We turned left off of State route 278 onto King's Hollow road just past the road to the camp ground. We stayed on that road, there is a sign that indicates the road changes names to Rockcamp road, we kept going until we got to a fork in the road, right at the fork on the road that went right there is the trail. On the left it was easy to see on the right side of the road not so much. Roy parked the car off on the side of the road (the road is gravel all the way) although I think there is small pull off back where the sign for Rock Camp Rd was. This trail is easy, flat wide, mowed and dry. We didn't have to walk to far to see the tunnel. Unlike the Moonville tunnel this one is made of timbers.

If you do go here remember to have a flashlight or your phone for it's flashlight you will need some light inside the tunnel. The floor is uneven and even in the dry weather we've had it was muddy.

Once we were out of the tunnel we continued on the trail.

Soon we were at the end of the trail or at least this part of it. Another crossing of Racoon Creek with a destroyed bridge. We actually walked down to the creek to see if we could find a way to cross it but even with the dry weather it was too deep to wade across with out getting soaked at least up to my hips.

So we turned around and walked back.

The tunnel entrance going back and below my hiking partner. He must have been in Scout mode since he brought his old Cub Scout pack and Troop T-shirts to wear.

It was an enjoyable walk, easy no steep hills to climb or rocks to scramble over. Just a nice walk in the woods with an old tunnel to walk through.
Next we got into the car and drove over to the state forest again. Roy and I had looked on online and we thought there was a way to get the furnaces off Stone Quarry Rd. It was a road we'd bypassed the first day but it had a sign for the State forest, Google was taking another way not that it mattered. This road to ended at a gate. However since we did have a signal and I had the All Trails app on I could see about where the furnace trail should be (BTW instead of naming it Furnace trail or something like that it is called Pine Run Trail) plus Roy in his search online had seen a picture of a bridge that people said they used to cross the creek. We turned around at the gate and found the bridge.

Yes we crossed this wreck of a bridge. You can barely see it in the pictures but there is a gap in the middle. I was a little freak out the first time I crossed it, there because I looked down and could see the water below and all I had to do was take a very giant step to one board in the middle of the gap and another giant step to the far side. We were on a trail that showed signs of use mostly by ATVs. We followed it and my app showed we should be almost beside the official trail.Finally we saw a tree with marker with a silhouette of a hiker. Ahh! the trail but which way? Up the hill or down toward the creek. We went down. Wrong move we came to a collapsed bridge probably and an old rail way bridge and the creek. We went back followed the up hill trail but it still wasn't going where we wanted. We never did find the furnaces we did see slag on the trails. I think if we had continued we might have found part of the coke furnaces if we'd known where to look. For a site that they plaster over all the area's tourism brochures and the State Forest has on their home page it is not easy to to get to or find. Maybe we will try again. I wish the State would put an offical trail from Stone Quarry road (and a better bridge) and some markers, signs or something to help a person find it.
We went back to the cabin and chilled out for most the afternoon, I think we did walk up to the lodge. Later we drove up to the other side of lake. There were like 5 vehicles parked in those cabin areas. We walked around one area. Next we went to the boat launch dock. We sat on a bench on the shore enjoying the scenery, it was all very nice, quiet and romantic until mosquitoes joined the party and both Roy and I decided about the same time that we didn't want to be their feast .