08/25/2026
Amazing!
🌿 There is a gorge in Jackson County where the plants look like they took a wrong turn somewhere in the Appalachian South and never went back.
Lake Katharine State Nature Preserve sits in the hill country outside Jackson, and it protects something genuinely unusual for this latitude. Bigleaf magnolia and umbrella magnolia grow here, trees with leaves so large they look tropical, and southern Ohio is about as far north as they get. Add sandstone cliffs, hemlock ravines, and a quiet lake, and the place feels a few hundred miles further south than it actually is.
It is also one of the more carefully protected preserves in the state. Access to some of the trails requires a permit, which keeps the crowds thin and the plants intact. That is a big part of why it still looks the way it does. Plenty of Ohioans have driven within twenty minutes of it and never known it was there. 🍃
What is a piece of Ohio you found late and immediately wished you had known about years earlier?
