Strouds Run State Park

This review is for the trails only, as that’s the only park of the park I have been able to visit. The trails are beautiful, and much more natural than most. There are some serious hills along the path we took which was the rockhouse trail. Just be aware if you go the day after a rain (like we did) some of the inclines can be slick and harder to make your way up. One of the things that I appreciated about this trail system though was all of the connectors and alternate paths that allowed us to shorten our hike when we wanted to and take another way down that was less steep.
The trails and intersections seemed very well marked, though we were lucky to be hiking with someone who runs the trails on a regular basis and knows them very well, so we weren’t really relying on the signage.
The views and serenity of this trail are fantastic. Once you get far enough in, you can’t hear any traffic or civilization noises making for a very peaceful hike.

Not a bad place if you got kids to take swimming, the fishing is fare but seen better

My wife and I had heard of this park before and since we were in the area, we thought we’d stop by and check it out. A beautiful park, much larger than we had anticipated on the outskirts of Athens. The hiking trails we enjoyable. We felt for the most part they were marked well and provided some great scenery that we’re not use to seeing in Northwest Ohio (the flat lands). We could tell there was definitely a Friends group that was working hard to maintain trails as there were newer foot bridges installed and newer signage posted. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to hike any other trails, just about 3 miles worth. Kudos to the local Friends group and volunteers for showing obvious signs of upkeep and improvement.
As for the campground area, what a huge disappointment. My wife and I are tent campers and often prefer quieter, non-​electric areas etc. but one word sums it up, «neglected». The 80 site campground was sparsely populated (about 5 sites taken on a weekend). It’s sad to see a state park campground look like this. The grass was a grown up and shabby, broken swings hanging from swingsets that obviously haven’t been maintained for years, fire rings not even visible because they were so overgrown in weeds. The vault latrines looked like they were from the 50’s and weren’t well maintained. The camp pads had dead grass and brush piled on them that had obviously been there for a very long time. Weeds and trees growing up and completely in front of the amphitheater screen at the campground entrance.
This is one of the biggest reasons I rated the park as a «3-​ok». If you want to go hiking, fishing, hang out by the lake and enjoy the views, it’s a nice park that seems to offer a lot of recreational activities, but if you plan to camp here, I’d consider other state parks first.

Some of the hiking trails at Stroud’s Run are a bit more rugged than at many of the other state parks in Ohio. There are some very steep hills. The hiking itself here is enjoyable, but it’s not for everyone. My main complaint, however, is that the park map is very poor. Some of the trails are not even labeled on the map. The actual trails themselves may be ok in terms of signage, but what good does that do you if they cross other trails and you can’t match up a trail name with a corresponding one on a map?
A friend and I wanted to hike for about an hour and it turned into a three hour hike because we accidentally ended up on a bridle trail instead of a hiking trail. It took us a long time to find our way back. It was a pretty hike, but I would have enjoyed it more if we had been better able to tell where we were.
All that said, I do have great memories of this place from back when I went to O.U. and my friends and I would come hang out here when we just had to get away from campus. The lake is really quite beautiful. I would definitely be willing to come back and maybe try the trail around the lake or one of the other trails.