Sheltowee Trace- Day 17- Halfway

 I'm sitting at our picnic table blogging in the rain. Fortunately, we managed to get a tarp up this morning before hiking. So far, we are sitting here dry.

The big news is that I passed the official halfway point on the trail. Actually, this is more than halfway for me because I have to skip the miles that are still closed from a tornado last year.

The day turned out to be a lot more difficult than we anticipated. We thought it would be a fairly easy 8.5 miles. The beginning was roadwalk, and we crossed over I-75.

Then, I think we broke a cardinal hiker rule. I think there is one truck stop on this entire trail. We passed up a real bathroom, an extra cold drink, and an extra snack, and walked right by!

So far, easy. Then the trail went on a gravel road which turned into a sand road. Except for the fact that everything so far had been a climb this was pretty easy. Then we turned on Fall City "Road." This was mostly bare rock going up and down, and it was all slippery. Yes, David is standing in the "road."

The real problem was that the humidity was climbing, and I don't do well with that. Finally, we descended with bad footing to Hawk Creek which we knew we would have to wade. Yup. The log used to be the decking of the suspension bridge. The water doesn't look deep, and it wasn't a bad wade, but it was over my knees.

Then we had a 1.7-mile climb to the car. This wasn't too bad, but we were just moving slowly. It took us 5.5 hours to do 8.5 miles. Not great.

I wanted to tell you a story from yesterday. A young guy in an ATV stopped as we were climbing our last significant hill of the day. We'd already walked 11 miles. I wasn't struggling yesterday, so I assume he just had to say something "between the boys." He said to David with a conspiratorial grin, "She looks like she could use a tow." David graciously just said, "Me, too."

Tomorrow we skip to the south end of the tornado damage and are doing a short day. My body is glad.

Miles walked in 2026: 510.9
Miles walked on Sheltowee Trace: 183

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky, Olive Branch Church to Somerset Rd. 8.5 miles.

See Sheltowee Trace- Wildcat

Sheltowee Trace- Day 16- Wildcat

 We walked a lot of hot miles today, but finally David got to see some real trail.

The largest common denominator was "Wildcat." Finally got some vistas from Wildcat Trail Road.

Wildcat Trail Road is a road and a trail. It began as a decent gravel road, but then became an ATV trail. I tried to get a picture of one of the rockiest places, but it doesn't show the bumps very well. We were passed by one ATV and one pickup truck.

One more good vista. I just don't have any idea what I'm looking at though. I'm not familiar enough with the area.

We reached Camp Wildcat where a battle of the Civil War was fought. There was lots we could have explored, but we were too hot and tired to do much except take a few pictures.

Then we joined Wildcat Happy Hollow Road which interested me a lot. It was part of the Wilderness Road that was begun in 1795 and brought thousands of settlers to Kentucky.

It was this Wilderness Road that the Camp Wildcat battle was fought over. In fact, the fighting went on for a long time as control of the road was important to both the Union and the Confederacy. I would like to learn more about the road. It came through Cumberland Gap, the same as Boone's Trace, and a native path before that. But I'm too tired to do more about it tonight.

Miles walked in 2026: 502.4
Miles walked on Sheltowee Trace: 174.5

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky. Robinson Cemetery Road to Olive Branch Congregation Church. 11.8 miles.

See Sheltowee Trace- Turtle on the Turtle

Sheltowee Trace- Day 15- Turtle on the Turtle

 Well, Bill left this morning, and David and I are on our own. Problem 1- The road commission closed the road we needed just as we got there. We had to take a long detour. Problem 2- Google took us to the wrong place and I had to figure out how to get to the right place with no cell service. Problem 3- Then we had to take a car back to Raccoon Creek Road. Yikes! We didn't start hiking until 10:30 despite leaving the campground before 8 am.

We did find a nice box turtle on the Big Turtle Trail. This was a smallish box turtle, but friendly.

We had to wade Horse Lick Creek twice.

It's a good thing we decided to hike the double mile and not check out Horse Lick Road. The whole thing is a mud pit ATV trail- none of it driveable by a car. Hard to walk at any decent speed. We did meet 4 horseback riders.

The entire day was ATV trails and then 4 miles of actual road walk. Poor David hasn't seen any real trail yet, and I think tomorrow is all road walk too.

Despite the bad footing, this was a pretty scene of light through the trees on Horse Lick "road."

Found a completely new-to-me flower on the road walk. This is the native Orange Noah Morning Glory, Ipomoea coccinia. Very cool!

The campground where we stayed last night had one chicken. She loved being given treats like the innards from a pepper and pizza crumbs. She was pretty funny!

So we hiked until 4 pm, then had to retrieve the car on Raccoon Creek Rd which took an hour, then drive an hour south to our new campground. We stopped at an Arby's for a quick dinner. Got the tents up just as it was getting dark, and I'm now blogging in the dark and the bugs. Have to get to bed quick.

Miles walked in 2026: 490.6
Miles hiked on the Sheltowee Trace: 162.7

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky. Raccoon Creek to Robinson Cemetery Road that counts- 9.8 miles (plus 1.1 mile of overlap on Raccoon Creek Rd). We are tired.

See Sheltowee Trace- Car Spotting

Sheltowee Trace- Day 14- The Car Spotting

 We DO have internet tonight. The lady who runs this campsite was here when we came this afternoon and gave us a Wifi password.

But, here's the best news of the day. David, Bill and I got to hike together again for one day. If you know me, you know that the three of us hiked together quite a few miles on the recent NCT hike. For example, in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota.

And here we are today.

Most of what we hiked today were also ATV trails that looked a lot like this.

The problem was, this looks about the same as the road we were using to spot a car at our planned ending point. This is the road.

Well, we got down it as far as Raccoon Creek Ford (after driving through three other fords), but we still had a mile to go to get to our destination. And it had taken a lot of time to carefully drive this far. Meanwhile Bill was waiting at the campground he had found for us. And we still had to go back and pick him up.

We were already fairly stressed out at this point. And the ford had a problem. We would have had to get on the concrete ribs in just the right place to not bottom out the cars. And the road on the other side didn't look worse, but it didn't look any better either. Um... no thanks. Then we realized the trail went right through that point. Decision! We put the car right there and shortened the day by a mile.

So, now I've massaged the next couple of days to even out the miles. Tomorrow we will start at a point where we have to re-walk one mile, but we decided that's better than driving that last mile again!

It turns out that Sand Gap, Kentucky, has an open gas station, a Dollar General Market (that has actual groceries), and a pizza place. Can you say celebration of our one day together? (Don't ask me why I have my hand against my face?)

But tomorrow morning, we have to say goodbye to Bill. David and I will go on for about 10 days until the companions will change again.

Miles walked in 2016: 479.7
Sheltowee Trace miles hiked: 152.9

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky. S-Tree Tower Rd to Raccoon Creek, 8.6 miles.

See Sheltowee Trace- Details

Sheltowee Trace- Day 13- Details

 Today was 9.2 fast miles, mostly on ATV trails.

We saw rocks- not exactly something new. But this place was neat where the trail went between two rock walls.

This is one of the biggest burls either of us has ever seen.

There was a short road walk in the middle, and we saw quite a few Woodland Sunflowers. Most of the flowers are done blooming, but there are some asters and goldenrod.

If you are on an ATV trail, you might as well embrace the concept, right? (Note: the Sheltowee Trace is a National Recreation Trail, and as such, motorized use is not necessarily prohibited.) We encountered a lot of places where the surface had been hardened with these interlocking blocks. We found a loose one, and they are primarily concrete, although the upper surface looks like asphalt with a lumpy black surface with embedded stones. Most of the places we encountered them, they were doing a good job of hardening the trail. We did find one place where everthing around them was washed out. Bill's feet for scale.

The biggest challenge of the day was that we had to find a Forest Road that led down to a county road to get to our spotted vehicle. For about a half mile we were walking with a rock cliff beside us on the side that was the direction we needed to turn. Yet, several different maps showed a road going off from the trail. And we had placed a car where we thought that road came from the trail.

As we were getting close, the trail rose beside the cliffs, and sure enough, we easily found our way to the car, only about a tenth of a mile off the trail. Success!

Then we spent a lot of time trying to find a campground to move to tomorrow. It's taking a ridiculous amount of time to stage the days' hikes from the location where we are.

Diane left this morning. She is safely in a motel for the night on her way home. Bill and I made our own dinner. Next hiking partner, David, is set to arrive at any moment. Bill, David, and I will hike together tomorrow. Then Bill has to leave on Wednesday morning.

Miles walked in 2026: 471
Miles hiked of Sheltowee Trace: 144.3

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky. Lime Kiln Ridge Road to a Forest Road and a spur on that down to S-Tree Tower Road. 9.2 trail miles. My body was happy for the lower mileage today.

See Sheltowee Trace- Resurgence Cave