Life on the Great American Rail-Trail: Week 4 — Ohio to Indiana

Bernie Krausse is 28 days and roughly 700 miles into his westbound thru-hike of the Great American Rail-Trail, hiking from Washington D.C. to the Pacific coast. This is his week four field dispatch.

There's a quote Bernie found on a memorial at his campsite on Day 22 that's been sitting with me since he sent it along: "Billy used to say that life is like a bicycle. You don't fall off unless you stop pedaling."

It's a fitting thought for someone covering 30-plus miles a day through the Ohio and Indiana flatlands. One step after another. Don't stop pedaling.

Storms, Killdeer, and the Edge of the Midwest

Week four opened on the Prairie Grass Trail in Ohio with a storm moving northeast and set to clip Bernie's path. He'd already noticed the landscape shifting — flatter, more agricultural, undeniably midwestern.

Near South Charleston, killdeer were picking along a gravel railroad track, likely scoping out nesting sites. The old train depot in town, complete with cabooses on display, felt like stepping back a generation or two — the kind of quiet, unhurried place the Great American Rail-Trail passes through regularly and that you won't find on any highlight reel.

The storm caught up with him between noon and 4pm, bringing light rain through Cedarville before he reached the landmark intersection at Xenia Station — mile 29 of the week — where the Great American Rail-Trail crosses both the Buckeye Trail and the North Country National Scenic Trail. Bernie had stood at that exact spot two and a half years earlier on his ADT thru-hike. Trail angels Jeri and Joe were there to pick him up, just as they had been then.

The Rhythm of Dayton and a Well-Timed Lunch

Day 23 started at 7:30am from Xenia Station, moving west on the Creekside Rail-Trail toward the Mad River Trail — where the North Country Trail rejoins the Great American for the third and final time. A guy named BAM flagged Bernie down for an impromptu YouTube interview. And then, in what Bernie described as synchronicity, he arrived at a Riverside park just as Jeri — his trail angel — happened to be catering a celebration for someone who had just completed the 1,400-mile Buckeye Trail loop around Ohio. Bernie walked in at exactly lunchtime.

The Mad River becomes the Great Miami River in Dayton, where kayakers were running the water. Bernie crossed over to the Wolf Creek Trail, then worked his way through Trotwood on a road stretch with no shoulders and broken glass from overnight bottle-throwing — the kind of detail that doesn't make it into the brochure but matters when you're moving on foot.

Day 24 was a zero. After 23 consecutive days of hiking from the Capitol Reflecting Pool, Bernie spent the day watching movies and having dinner with Jeri and Joe. A well-earned pause.

Crossing Into Indiana

Day 25 was a 39-mile day — Bernie's longest single day on the hike to that point. He was back on the road at 6:30 am, finishing the Wolf Creek Rail-Trail into Verona before 30 miles of road walking on Bike Route 50 into Richmond, Indiana. He walked a steady 3.5 miles per hour into a 20-plus mph headwind. Half the vehicles he passed waved at him, including a few school bus drivers.

The Ohio-Indiana state line came and went without a sign. No fanfare, no marker. Just a flat road and another mile ticking off.

In Richmond, he resupplied at Walmart and charged his phone at Wendy's before reconnecting with the American Discovery Trail — the northern route he'd walked two years earlier. It's a significant moment in the geography of this hike: from here, Bernie tracks the ADT corridor west before eventually breaking north toward the Cowboy Trail in Nebraska.

He's thinking about this hike in stages now. Stage two is the Midwest. Stage three will be the Cowboy Trail into Wyoming. Stage four, the Rockies through Missoula. Stage five, rail-trailing into Seattle through Idaho and Washington. And stage six, the Olympic Peninsula to La Push — a place he once worked and called home.

Bike Mike and the Cardinal Greenway

Day 26 brought thunderstorms through the night that cleared at sunrise in time for the birds to make full use of the moment. Back on trail, Bernie was moving west through Indiana on the Cardinal Greenway. In Losantville, the trailhead water was turned off, so he stopped at a Shell station where they let him fill up from the soda machine.

That night he pitched his tarp tent on the lawn of Bike Mike — the operator of Greenway 500 — who has cycled across the United States five times on different routes and now opens his place to hikers and cyclists passing through. Good people doing quiet, generous things.

Day 27 was warmer — near 80 degrees — and included a gap section that deserves a specific mention. Between Gaston and Jonesboro, the Cardinal Greenway breaks for about 15 miles of road walking. Bernie was following the mapped route when he noticed the trailhead signage showed an alternate back road option that was quieter and more pleasant than the busy road he was on. He adjusted — left onto 1050S, right onto 350E — and the difference was immediate.

We've now updated our gap route data to reflect this alternative. That's exactly how this verification process works in real time: Bernie walks it, flags it, and the data gets better.

Before he reached Jonesboro, Jeri — who had been hiking three days of the ADT just ahead of him — tracked him down to deliver trail magic: two Mountain Dews and a Taco Bell bag. He arrived at the Jonesboro American Legion at 7pm, where I'd called ahead to arrange a place to sleep. They put him up on the patio once the bar closed at 9pm.

Indiana's Rail Corridor at Its Best

The final day of the week, Day 28, was a 36-mile push through what Bernie describes as the most aesthetically pleasing section he's seen in the Midwest — railroad signage, rail paraphernalia, covered bridges. He stopped for coffee at the Encounter Cafe in Converse, where the owner took his photo and posted it on Facebook. A few miles down the road, a woman named Hannah pulled over to say she'd just seen him on that post. Later, a Venmo donation from her showed up. Trail community showing up in unexpected ways.

Bernie Krausse

Great American Rail-Trail - Westbound
Started: March 28, 2026
Support Links: ImHikingAmerica, Facebook, Venmo, PayPal Donate

Sporadic rain through the afternoon, drying off from body heat between showers. The MAC Trail into Bunker Hill was freshly paved — new asphalt, new benches, clearly just opened. He picked up the Nickel Plate Trail into Peru, Indiana, as the rain finally stopped around 6pm.

Thirty-six miles. Week four done.

Where the Data Stands

Bernie is now well into Indiana, and our Great American Rail-Trail GPS data is being refined with each day he walks. The gap route update between Gaston and Jonesboro is live. If you're planning this section — or any section ahead of Bernie's current position — the tracks are available now, and they'll only get sharper as verification continues.

Hiking America's Great American Rail-Trail GPS tracks are free and available to everyone. Download them here.

What Bernie is building in real time is the layer on top of that — thousands of curated services waypoints telling you where to eat, sleep, and resupply along the corridor. That's the data that turns a GPS track into a navigation system you can actually hike with.

Access to the services waypoints folder is included with a Hiking America subscription.

Already a subscriber? You're all set — new waypoints appear in your Gaia GPS automatically as Bernie verifies them. No additional charge.

Not yet a subscriber? A Hiking America subscription gives you the complete navigation package for both the Great American Rail-Trail and the American Discovery Trail — services waypoints, turn-by-turn guides, and real-time field updates from the trail.

$7/month or $70/year — cancel anytime.

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