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