Sheltowee Trace- Day 28- O&W Railroad

  We had to change plans before we even got very far out of the campground this morning. A semi-trailer was trying to come down the switchbacks on 297, went off the edge and managed to block both lanes of the road. We were able to turn around, but the only way to get to our planned starting location added 61 miles to the drive! We jumped ahead a day instead. I know I said we weren't going to do that, but I guess I lied.

The feature of the day was ending at the Oneida and Western Railroad Bridge. Oneida & Western ran from Oneida to Jamestown, Tennessee, carrying coal, lumber, mail, groceries and passengers. From the size of the rock cuts they had to make (the road to the bridge is on the old railroad bed), it cost a LOT to build. It began operation in the 1920s, and the final run was in 1954. Most of the profit was made in the early years

Interestingly, the reporting mark is O&W, which confused me. Every rail line has to have a unique reporting mark. There is a rail line in Ohio that interacts with the North Country Trail in a few places. But I guess it is OR&W- Ohio River and Western. And in New York, the Ontario and Western is NYO&W.

This bridge is now primarily used by trails, although cars are still allowed to cross it.

The next snafu is that my camera did not take any pictures for reasons unknown. I just checked it and it's fine. Maybe the SD card wasn't seated right. So Doug took all the pictures I'm showing today.

The nice news is that almost all of today was downhill, and the treadway was mostly good.

One of the highlights (and high point in elevation) was views from the top of a hill that apparently has no name. This cliff is on the other side of Falls Creek

But if you looked off into the distance, you could see the Big South Fork out there.

One of the oddest, and maybe saddest things, was this single grave for Archie Smith. He was born in 1932 and died when he was 5 months old. You can only get to the grave by hiking, but someone is keeping his memory alive.

It's been a while since I've done a picture like this. Just fun!

We also saw two young copperheads, and a large black rat snake.

Now I've struggled with transferring pictures as much as I want to. Tomorrow we will fill in the missing piece and Saturday... I finish!

Miles walked in 2026: 624.7
Sheltowee Trace miles: 296

Sheltowee Trace, Tennessee. Bandy Creek Campground to O&W Railroad Bridge. 10.6 miles

See Sheltowee Trace- Wading the Big South Fork

Sheltowee Trace- Day 27- Wading the Big South Fork

  I think the big story of the day is that we ended at Station Camp Ford across the Big South Fork River. Doug went and checked it last night to be sure we could do it. Horses cross here regularly, but humans are shorter and I'm on the short side of adult humans, and we needed to check the strength of the current. By using this ford, we were able to even out the mileage on the last few days a bit. It made today long, but we decided to go with it. Of course, we'll begin tomorrow by wading it again.

About halfway through the day we took in the view from the John Muir overlook. It's impressive. You can't even see the river down at the bottom.

The long descent down the toe of the hill below the overlook was actually well-built, but it was pretty steep at the top. These stairs were more like a ladder, and we both chose to go down backwards.

The other news of the day was Maude's Crack. This is an actual crack in a huge rock wall that just appears out of nowhere in the woods. You can see Doug's blue shirt, where he's standing, for scale.

It "killed me" to pass up doing it, but my legs aren't real happy with the 13-mile days, and it was a big scramble just to get to the crack. And there were still 4 miles to hike. But Doug went up it. Maybe you can see the yellow rope in the crack behind him. You have to use the rope to get up the crack because it's so steep.

Sue had taken a picture of the top a few days ago when she hiked to it.

We completed the miles in pretty good time, thanks to some good trail construction.

Miles walked in 2026: 614.1
Sheltowee Trace miles: 285.4

Sheltowee Trace, Tennessee. John Muir TH to Station Camp Ford, 13.4 miles

See Sheltowee Trace- No Bridge Over Troublesome Waters

Sheltowee Trace- Day 26- No Bridge Over Troublesome Waters

 Today, we went back and hiked the missing piece in Kentucky. From now on, everything should be in north to south sequence.

Ha ha! I was going to post about the bridge over troublesome waters, but it washed out several years ago. However, it was OK, because Troublesome Creek didn't even have any water in it today. We aren't sure why it was so troublesome to someone.

There was a bridge, however, over Difficult waters. Difficulty Creek bridge had been recently repaired. And the creek valley was deep and had water in it, and it would have been a steep scramble down to creek level. We are very happy for bridges.

For a large part of the day we followed a very old road grade that we are thinking was used to access the Beatty Oil Well. Now here's an enigma of hairsplitting.

The Beatty Well struck oil in 1818 and produced quite a lot of oil. However, it was originally drilled to find brine (salt) not oil. The Drake Well in Pennsylvania claims to be the first commercial oil well (1859). The difference seems to be that the Drake Well was drilled specifically to find oil. To split the hairs even finer, Noble County, Ohio drilled for brine in 1814 and struck oil. It was bottled and sold as Seneca Oil, an all-purpose medicine. Most of the "snake oil" remedies sold for decades across the country were crude petroleum products and mixtures. So, who really had the first well? Who knows. But this is where the Beatty Well was, and at its height, it oozed 100 barrels of oil a day. It was sent down the Cumberland River to be repackaged and sold as linement, pitch, and lamp fuel.

We saw another box turtle, but this one's legs and the top of his head were gorgeous with bright yellow spots.

The mornings have been cool and foggy. I finally got a picture of the sun rays breaking through.

Tomorrow will be our last day over 13 miles. That's fine with me! Only 4 hiking days to go.

Miles hiked in 2026: 600.6
Sheltowee Trace miles: 272

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky. South of Ledbetter TH to Peters Mt. TH- 11.3 miles

See Sheltowee Trace- KY to TN

Sheltowee Trace- Day 25- KY to TN

 Today was out of sequence, so we still have one day to hike in Kentucky, but today we crossed the state line. At least Kentucky had a sign!

There was actually a little trickle of water coming over this rock. Can you just see the splashes where it is hitting the rocks below? It doesn't seem to have a name.

Then we walked for nearly a mile in/beside this unnamed creek. This is when we were walking in the creekbed. In addition to this, the trail crossed it 19 times. I don't think this is a trail to hike in springtime.

We saw a harmless Black Rat Snake.

For the last big climb beside Massie Branch (creek) we were again on an old rail bed. This made the climb very easy!

Judging by the patterns of moss growth when we got a little higher, I thought they had not pulled out the ties. When we got a little higher, guess what!? Exposed ties.

And guess what again? This is yet another part of the Stearns Logging Railroad empire!

We got a bit of a late start hiking. We had to move to our final campground, and then do some exploring to get good intel about some of the pickup points I had planned to use. We massaged our plan a bit, but we like the new one a lot. Tomorrow, we'll go back and fill in the missing piece in Kentucky.

Miles walked in 2026: 589.3
Sheltowee Trace Miles: I think I messed this up somewhere. I think I'm at 260.7. I'll double check tomorrow.

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky and Tennessee- Peters Mt. Trailhead to John Muir Trailhead. 9.0 miles

See Sheltowee Trace- Tipple Bridge

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