Outdoors

Camping | Hiking | Canoeing | Cycling

With over 4,000 acres of parks, peace and quiet are only minutes away from anywhere in Greene County. On the Little Miami River, the only sound is the water dripping from your canoe paddle as you drift up to a Great Blue Heron that stands silently before majestically taking flight. Atop Williamson Mound (an artifact of the prehistoric mound builders of the Ohio Valley) you can hear the wind and see it in the treetops as you gaze down on the valley of Massie’s Creek while a red-tailed hawk soars overhead. In the wetlands of Beavercreek, you’ll find a mile of well-maintained boardwalk with tall pink Queen of the Prairie waving to either hand, leading to a tower that overlooks a sea of cattails. In the Clifton Gorge Nature Preserve, as you approach the Falls of the Little Miami, the noise of the water steadily gains in volume until you are looking down from the observation platform as the river forces itself through the narrow gorge fifty feet below. Ride for miles on any of the county’s paved rails-to-trail bike paths, surrounded by the musical songs of red winged blackbirds and the raucous caws of crows.