Step by step, our muddy boots cross Snowville Road, trading one patch of Ohio woods for another. I’m exhausted. I shrug off my 30-pound backpack and, knees crunching, sit in the grass, while my husband, Mike, analyzes the next section of trail on a board map, dabbing at drops of forehead sweat with a handkerchief.

One section of hiking remains in the day, which will take us up and down a zig-zagging route in the Cuyahoga Valley, from Snowville Road into Brecksville Reservation. Ahead, more hills — always more hills.

The sun beams down through thick and humid air. It’s our third day of hiking, and we’re 36.3 miles deep in the 250-mile Little Loop segment of the larger 1,444-mile-long Buckeye Trail which encircles the state. The path, with its signature blue blazes, has taken us through Cu

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