Most people expect an ancient monument to be made of stone. High Bank Works is made of earth, and it asks you to do a little more of the work yourself. It sits in the Scioto Valley a few miles south of Chillicothe, Ohio, on flat bottomland that looks like any other farm field until you notice the low grassy banks drawing a perfect circle joined to a perfect octagon. The Hopewell people raised these walls roughly two thousand years ago, with baskets of soil, no draft animals and no metal tools.
What makes it more than a pretty lawn is the geometry. The octagon and its neighbouring circle are laid out so exactly that researchers have argued for decades that the alignments track the lunar cycle, including the long 18.6 year swing of the moon's rising points. Nobody can tell you for certain what the ceremonies were. The Hopewell traded obsidian from Wyoming, shell from the Gulf and copper from Lake Superior across half a continent, and this was clearly a place where that world came together. Together with the Newark Great Circle in the north of the state, Mound City in Chillicothe and the other earthworks on these rides, it was added to the UNESCO list in 2023, which tells you the scholars take it seriously.
The riding around here is gentle Ohio, and honest about it. Southern Ohio is where the glaciers stopped, so the country starts to roll and fold into wooded hills a little to the east and south, and the lanes along the Scioto and Paint Creek are pleasant, lightly trafficked and best in late spring when the corn is low or in October when the sycamores along the river turn. Expect farm trucks, the odd slow tractor and gravel on the shoulders at field entrances. Nothing here will test you. The pleasure is rolling from one earthwork to the next and noticing how the land was chosen.
For practical matters, Chillicothe, about seven kilometres off, has fuel, food and beds, and it was Ohio's first state capital, so the old downtown is worth a slow lap on a bike. The site itself is open and has little shade, so in July bring water and a hat. Walk the bank rather than ride toward it, read the signs, and give yourself ten quiet minutes to imagine the crowds that once gathered here.