I am so grateful for the Plaid Friday tradition (we’re up to six of them now). It started with an idea from our friend, Danny Korman, who closed his store on the “biggest shopping day of the year”. Danny wanted to encourage folks to get out of stores and out of consumerism, and out into the beautiful urban areas that Cincinnati has to offer.
I’m so glad he invited Imago to join and even though Danny has moved out of town, I’m happy that we’ve kept his vision alive … turning a day of consumerism into a day of community, turning Black Friday into Plaid Friday.
The pandemic forced us to add a few new wrinkles for this latest version. We wanted to keep numbers smaller so we broke the hike into two smaller groups. This also allowed us to offer two different levels of hike.
Our day started with a morning river hike along the Ohio. This was our flat route which featured some of the best that Cincinnati has to offer. Lovely river views, crossing three bridges (including the historic Roebling), a riverside park with statues, and hiking along the Kentucky levee.
If the morning route featured the River and the well-known parts of Cincinnati, the afternoon featured the hills and the hidden parks and stairs that you can only experience on foot.
We started in Over the Rhine and we made our way north up Main Street till it ends in stairs… lots and lots of stairs. We climbed all those stairs to the top of Mount Auburn behind Christ Hospital. Then dropped down some hidden stairs and wove along Mount Auburn and Clifton Heights. Along the way we saw several parks, some so small that they were just a tiny playground, and others that featured lakes and picnic shelters. Near the end of the hike we made it to Bellevue Park, which is my favorite view of the city. This park offers a wide open view of the Cincinnati valley, facing south and west. We ended, by dropping down yet another set of stairs back to Over the Rhine to complete the loop.
In all, we had 50 hikers and altogether we walked about 9 miles! There have been requests for more hikes spread out throughout the year, so keep an eye on our event calendar. Big thanks to all of our hikers, our organizers and to Danny Korman, who invited us to join him on the very first one.
