Sheltowee Trace- Day 24- Tipple Bridge

 You know if there's a good railroad story it's going to be my highlight of the day. Today we walked past the end of the Tipple Bridge. We visited it by car yesterday down at the lower level. Today we were high on the hill at the level of the bridge. It's closed even for pedestrians, but at least I could sort of shoot a picture down its length.

What is a tipple bridge, you ask? It's where gravity is used to transfer coal (most commonly) from one train to a different one. Here is what it looks like from down below. Trains with coal would come across the high bridge, and dump the coal through this light gray structure into the waiting cars below. You can just barely see black cars below.

There was one other chance to see this bridge from an overlook today. However, when Doug and I got there, there was so much fog we could barely see it. Sue took this picture earlier in the morning. It sort of puts that huge bridge in persepective in the landscape.

They had an excellent model of the operation. I managed to get one picture without too many reflections. First of all, let me say that the trail goes along the orange and blue lines near the top. Trains would come over the high tipple bridge (orange line), and dump the coal down through the building. Then the train would continue on the orange line. When the last car was clear, they could back up (blue line). When the engine was clear of the yellow line, the train could descend to the lower green level. I should have broken the green line to show it's lower than the bridge. Hope you can figure it out.
I'd love to know more about the general lines in the area. This was ALL under the control of Justus Stearns whom I mentioned a few days ago. There is a biography of him, but I haven't read it because I wasn't so much interested in his southern operations before. But now, I really want to know more.

Other memorable moments of the day.

We started with a wade of Rock Creek. But we need to rename it as Lost Stick Creek. We got across, and Doug looked back and realized he'd left his hiking stick. And he'd already changed out of his water shoes. So he changed back and went to retrieve his stick.

We knew there were going to be showers during the day. We didn't mind hiking in the light rain much, but just sitting to eat lunch didn't appeal very much. We found a cave! It was completely dry under the overhang. You can see how dry the dirt is.

We saw two more box turtles- both of them small. We were able to hike right along. For the most part, the trail was in good condition. I was a tiny bit concerned about the distance because there were a lot of hills. But the big difference was that there was not a fallen tree to deal with every 10 minutes. I wasn't overly tired at the end of the day.

And we had a cheering section! Sue came and found us near the end at Waters Cemetery. We just had about an hour to go after that.

We hiked a little farther than the trailhead to reduce the mileage for the next day. Actually, that won't be tomorrow. We have to change campgrounds, and the logistics are tricky, so we are "jumping ahead" to hike shorter mileage tomorrow. Then we'll come back and connect from today.

Miles hiked in 2026: 580.3
Sheltowee Trace miles: 248.3

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky. K&T Railroad Bridge to junction with trail south of Ledbetter TH, 13.5 miles.

See Sheltowee Trace- Rain and Fun

Sheltowee Trace- Day Off- Rain and Fun

 Boy, did we make a good choice as to which day to take off. Can you tell what we did in the morning? Laundry. We almost needed to jump in the dryers after running from the car. It poured all morning and a little bit into the afternoon.

Then we ate out. I had a B-B-Q pork sandwich, and we had to have hot fudge cake after that!

After one grocery stop, we came back to the campground and had to move to a different site which took a while, and we had to dry some stuff out because the tent I'm sharing with Sue leaked a bit. By then the weather had cleared and we decided to go see some local points of interest.

This is the view of the Big South Fork from the Blue Heron overlook.

We drove down to the Blue Heron mine town and the coal tipple bridge. This is very cool from a railroad fan perspective and has even more ties to Justus Stearns, but I'll just show you the bridge today. It's closed even for pedestrian use, but the ranger said they have asked Congress for money to make it safe for pedestrians.

We had seen two small arches along the road. One of them has a name- Wagon Arch, because supposedly before the road to the mine was built, it was part of a wagon road. Sue found a geocache there.

There was one more tiny arch. You can see how small it is in this picture with me climbing down from the top of it.

Then we came back to the campsite and Sue made us grilled cheese sandwiches. A great day off!

Miles walked in 2026: 566.8

Maybe a mile walking to various overlooks and things.

See Sheltowee Trace- New Support Crew

Sheltowee Trace- Day 23- New Support Crew

 Last night two friends arrived to see me through to the end of this hike. I can't believe there is only about a week left!

Sue is the support person, giving rides and fixing dinner. She's had a lot of practice at this- she did the most months of anyone on the North County Trail hike. Doug S. is hiking with me. We look the same size because he's standing in a ditch!

This was too funny. It was just break time, and what did we find in the woods but two empty folding chairs! Of course we used them.

We saw Beech Drops today. They are a parasitic plant that is usually found under beech trees. And there was one beech nearby.

As usual, there were lots of amazing rock walls. One was a large shelf cave that the trail went through.

But the most significant natural feature was that we joined the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. We were seeing it through the trees a lot, but you can't really get good pictures. Finally, we were closer with a break in the greenery.

From the Yamacraw road bridge there was a good view.

We wanted to reduce the miles for the next hiking day a little bit, so we went on to the Kentucky & Tennessee Yamacraw Railroad Bridge. This is a high bridge of concrete arches, no longer in use. It was built in 1906 to carry coal trains. When it was built it was the largest concrete bridge in existence.

It's really high too. Doug took this picture of me down on the trail from the bridge deck.

The trail surface was pretty good most of the day, but there were an awful lot of fallen trees to go over, under or around.

This is the longest walking day I've done since the big North Country Trail hike. It didn't kill me, but it doesn't feel good. We are taking tomorrow off. We'd like to wait a couple more days, but there may be serious rain tomorrow and all the rest of the days look like nice weather.

Miles walked in 2026: 565.8
Sheltowee Trace miles walked: 234.8

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky. Wiborg Trailhead to K&T Railroad Bridge. 13.9 miles.

See Sheltowee Trace- Laurel River

Sheltowee Trace- Day 22- Laurel River

 Today was the day I filled in the little gap that we left on purpose. David spotted me and then headed home for Michigan. He should be there by now. I'm sure he can hardly move after all the days of hard hiking to just spend 8 hours in a car.

The day was defined by things having to do with the Laurel River, beginning with the Laurel River Dam which the trail crosses. In the early mornings the mist rising off the water was really pretty, but that was all gone by the time I had walked there today.

Laurel Lake is large with a lot of drowned river valleys- at least six- so views are convoluted. This shot is taken from the dam.

There are dead trees in a number of those valleys. I liked the way these looked.

The trail headed downstream with good footing most of the way to the Mouth of the Laurel where it joins the Cumberland River. The Cumberland flows northwest, draining into the Ohio River.

But of course a day couldn't possibly be all easy. At the Whitman Branch there was another boulder crossing. That long oblong rock was about the size of three pickup trucks end-to-end. But that top edge was a nice 90-degree angle. I threw my stick over the top (checking that it wouldn't disappear into a crevice), launched myself like a spider and caught that top edge, then crab crawled up to the top and dropped down the other side.

After that, just to even things out, were seven-tenths of a mile of horrible trail. But I had a short day, and it was fine.

I've moved campsites, and my next hiking and support companions have arrived. Stay tuned! The last third of the trip is beginning.

Miles walked in 2026: 551.9
Sheltowee Trace miles: 223.9

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky. Holly Bay boat launch to Bee Creek Rd. 6.6 miles.

See Sheltowee Trace- Stearns Coal and Lumber Company

Sheltowee Trace- Day 21- Stearns Coal and Lumber Company

 OK, I thought today's best feature was going to be the many creeks we followed. And of course, more rocks. But this is amazing! Those of you who know me know that I LOVE sniffing out historic railroads.

So, about halfway through our hiking day, just after we turned to go upstream along Railroad Fork (a creek), we entered this. "Railroad cut," I said. "Narrow Gage."

David wasn't really sure, but after we passed through the cut, this was the path we were walking.

We stopped to eat lunch where a substantial berm had been built to carry the tracks. This is almost always definitive. They didn't go to this much work for regular roads. And the grade stayed pretty even. It probably hit 3% in some places (2% is normal), but sometimes small railroads did this.

Where the trail now crosses Railroad Fork, it dips down to water level. But you could easily see where the track ran out onto an abutment and bridge, now long gone.

And on the other side of the creek you can see where the bridge came to. The trail climbed back up to the rail grade.

Once the trail and rail grade were on the west side of the creek it was benched into the hillside.

Altogether the trail follows that grade for almost 2 miles. A lot of it has been protected with environmental cloth and pea gravel laid over that. It was our best walking surface of the day.

Of course, I wanted to see if I could find out more about it on line. Sometimes this isn't really possible with small logging operations. The local museum might have info. But...

But! This is almost certainly part of the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company rail lines. And... can you believe it, this is the Justus Stearns of Mason and Lake County, Michigan fame (where I live)?! He was one of the early lumber barons. He has many ties to Ludington, building the first hospital. Stearns Park- the main Ludington Lake Michigan beach is named for him. The Stearns Hotel is named for him. But in 1902, he decided to branch out into coal, and bought 30,000 acres in Kentucky. In McCreary County, where this railbed is located. The city of Stearns, Kentucky is just a few miles away.

At home, the lumber town of Stearns Siding (which burned in the late 1800s) was bigger than the nearby city of Baldwin is now. The North Country Trail uses several pieces of rail bed that are associated with Stearns.

So, I can not tell you where this line began and ended, but I can be pretty sure that it was built and operated by a man i've read a lot about.

Railroad sniffing heaven! But, of course, now I want to know more.

Miles walked in 2026: 545.2
Miles walked Sheltowee Trace: 217.3

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky, Rt 700 at Cat Run Rd to Wiborg TH, 10.0 miles

See Sheltowee Trace- Cumberland River