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 7- Indian Arch

 Today was gorgeous but tough. We did not get an early start because we had to move campsites.

The trail today was more like what I've been expecting. Except for at one junction we didn't see a trail marker for the first 4 miles. We did see a lot of this, and worse. There was a lot of climbing over and through big fallen trees. My legs are tired. And the one big climb was really steep. These are not complaints per se... I just expect we'll see a lot more of this sort of thing.

This was a gorgeous little break at Gladie Creek.

There are so many beautiful things I want to share, but I'm just too tired to add much more. This was the high point of the day both physically (almost), and emotionally. The trail went right through Indian Arch.

I love the textures on the rocks with minerals, lichen, and the rocks themselves.

Turned out the arch was not all the way up. We climbed a little more to the top of the rock formation, and this was the view across the valley.

A failure in planning was that I didn't realize the parking was on a spur trail. When we found that out in the morning, the sign said it was a quarter mile. Ha! Of course it was 4 tenths.

Tomorrow we enter the Red River Gorge Geological Area.

Miles walked in 2026: 402.5
Miles on the Sheltowee Trace: 77.9

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky, Corner Ridge TH to Red River Rd, plus a spur. Total 9.9 miles.

See Sheltowee Trace-Day 6- Geology

Sheltowee Trace- Day 6- Geology

 Today was an easy day. Tehnically it was all roads although the middle third had been abandoned as a road and was an ATV trail. The surface in this picture is much better than it was most places. Note the caves.

But what really struck me was the variation in geology. We were walking beside a creek, and suddenly, instead of everything being the sandstone and yellow clay, the creek was pure New York shale. See the little waterfall going over the layers of gray shale?

Of course, we've been seeing both sandstone and limestone cliffs and caves. That didn't seem so odd to me. They are both of a similar geologic age and are often seen together. And yesterday we saw lots of conglomerate. Mostly quartz pebblws caught in a sandstone matrix. Where that has eroded, the white quartz pebbles cover the trail. This was a solid patch that was still cemented in the matrix.

The shelf caves Bill is walking toward above are limestone- gray, more fine textured. But the cave below is a sandstone shelf cave. Water runs over this sometimes and is called Clifton Falls. No water today!

But the shale just seemed totally out of place to me. Especially since we were walking in yellow clay and the gray shale was right beside us. Bill is kind of a geology buff. He likes an app called Rock D. Here is what we walked through today looks like.

This is VERY cool! the yellow is alluvial and has washed down the streams and is youngest. The olive green is Mississipian with shale the deepest- why we only saw it in the lowest (oldest) valley, then mixed sandstone and limestone. The light green is higher ( newer) and is Pennsylvanian.

The first and last thirds of the day were actual road walk. I don't dislike this as much as some people. I like seeing the homes- which varied from poor Appalachia to some nice farms with pretty views. Here's a hilly part of the roadwalk.

The day's biggest challenge was the 94% humidity we started in. I could hardly breathe. But then the humidity dropped a bit (and the temperature went up). We are glad we had a fast hike and finished just at noon.

Miles walked in 2026: 392.6
Sheltowee Trail miles: 68.4

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky. Co Rd 1274 to Corner Ridge TH. 8.9 miles

See Sheltowee Trace- Day 5- Rocks

Sheltowee Trace- Day 5

 Today we started at Clear Creek at 7:40 am. As you can maybe see, there is a tiny bit of water in it. At other times of the year there are lots of streams that need to be waded. At this time of year, I doubt you could backpack the trail without putting water caches out. The other issue is that most of the streams are very silty. Lots of pre-filtering might be required.

We started the day at 768 feet elevation, and our high point was 1538 feet. That's 770 feet of change with a lot of extra ups and downs too. But, again, most of the trail was well-graded and benched. A few places were 15-20%, but most was the standard 10% grade. Kudos to the trail builders!

The big fun of the day was ROCKS. I think this might be part of the Allegheny escarpment. If not, it looks very similar. At first we were just climbing beside them.

Then we were climbing between them. The trail wound up to the top and crossed the tops of the rocks.

Here's a big example of the webs those orb spiders make.

This is a plant first for me- finding Sullivantia in bloom. It grows only on damp limestone walls.

Once we got up pretty high, the trail joined an ATV trail. Sometimes that made the walking easier, and sometimes harder. But this was a very neat space. The sandstone was almost like flowstone. The trail went right up this!

We only did 8.7 miles today, and even with all the climbing (and then descending back to 831 feet) it was a fun day! Tomorrow will be easy- quite a lot of roadwalk.

Miles walked in 2026: 383.7
Miles on the Sheltowee Trace: 59.5

Clear Creek Campground to Beaver Creek Road. I don't think the hill we went over has a name. 8.7 miles.

See Sheltowee Trace- Day 4

Sheltowee Trace- Day 3

 The morning started with a walk through the city of Morehead and Morehead State University. Hard for a Michigander to think of MSU as Morehead. The hills beyond Triplett Creek are the backdrop of all scenes from the town which is spread up the opposite hill. We were hiking at 7:50 am.

Walking through town was kind of fun. We followed the turtles on the sidewalk.

The city had turtles painted for decorations. This is just one of them.

Our first five miles were on road and we cranked those out at a rate of 3 mph. Went past some nice farms nestled below the hills. You can see cows in the field.

Then we made it to off-road trail. Bill signed us in at the register box. We had 7.9 miles yet to go.

Right off the bat was a 400-foot climb. But I want to tell you that someone built this section of trail with very high standards. It was graded and benched and switchbacked properly all the way to the top. A nearly painless climb.

On the top of the ridge, I thought we were going to be on a gravel forest road, and we were off and on. So that walking was pretty easy too. We stayed up with little ups and downs until the end of the day when there was a big downhill to the Cumberland Ranger Station.

We moved campsites, and we don't have ANY internet, so we drove up to this overlook where we have service so I can blog and everyone can check their messages.

I didn't have any troubles with the hiking today. I ate more salt and who-knows-why else. It was hot, hot, hot. The night did not cool down and it was 93° when we finished. I need these temperatures to cool a little bit.

Tomorrow is another big mileage day, then they get shorter. I'm pretty sure the terrain gets harder too.

The bites burn unmercifully, and it's hard to sleep when it doesn't cool down at night. But it has to get better!

Miles walked in 2026: 361.6
Miles hiked on the Sheltowee: 37.4

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky, Eagle Lake Trailhead to Cumberland Ranger Station. 12.9 miles

See Sheltowee Trace- Day 2

Sheltowee Trace- Day 1

 Bill and I were hiking at 8:09 this morning. That was awesome. It didn't heat up badly until after 2 pm. Here we are at the Northern Terminus.

OUr very first blaze of this hike! The trail is blazed pretty much adequately. Here it's nail-up blazes like this one and some arrows. The treadway was about half packed earth, and half loose rock. The footing on that can be difficult. Things are really dry. We would have had wet feet most of the day, but none of the stream crossings had any water.

A lovely Frittalary on some Wingstem flowers. Not going to look up what kind- I'm fading fast.

We started with a climb. Then we were up on a ridge for most of the day. The afternoon had a big down, then an up and down, and one final up. Not many views from the ridge though. This is the best I could get.

When we crossed one of the creeks (sorry, I'm not going to look that up either. Maybe I'll do a better job another day) there was this swinging bridge. Kind of fun, kind of weird. It does swing.

Up to the top of the next ridge. Shades of North Dakota- we shared the space with some cows. Of course you know I'll compare this to the NCT. The poison ivy is like Ohio. It hangs off the trees in an attempt to grab you. The loose rock is like New York.

We took the requisite selfie at the beginning. It's so wonderful to have Diane to take care of us. She had food ready pretty much when we got back to camp. She does a lot of the details that chew up time away from hiking. And she says she's having fun being with us.

The part that's pure Kentucky? We got in seed ticks again, like in 2019. This time I knew what had happened right away and proactively worked hard to get the little nasties off. Last time, they made me sick. But I think we acted fast enough and have the situation under control.

The temperature, depending on the thermometer made it to something between 87 and 92. Hot, very hot. I was strugging a bit the last 1.5 miles, but I made it. And the mileage... the trail wasn't exactly on the line in the FarOut app in a couple of places. The official mileage was 13.8. Bill's tracker said 14.2, but I thiink I'll stick with the 13.8.

Miles walked in 2026: 337.6
Miles walked on the Sheltowee Trace this trip: 13.8

Sheltowee Trace, Northern Terminus to Rt 799. 13.8 miles

See Three Amigos Roughing It

Traction Treads

Fourteen people showed up today to work on the trail in Sterling Marsh. This is 13 sections of boardwalk that our chapter built in 2009-2011, and are almost a half-mile in length, total.

Here is the crew, except for Dan who took the picture. He was also our crew leader today. We got all the strips we had in place. If you go out there and wonder why we didn't "finish," it's because we have to wait a year to get enough more strips.

Because it was also Public Lands Day, and also North Country National Scenic Trail Day, Carhartt had donated quite a few of their nice orange watch caps to the Association. Anyone who became a member today got one of these free. Our chapter had five to possibly use, and five people stepped up to join and get a hat.

So, what were we doing? Well, this boardwalk has changed that entire section of trail from a continuous mudpit that everyone avoided to a "destination hike." However, because a lot of it is shaded, the wood was often wet and slippery. The Forest Service suggested we try these traction strips. They are really expensive, but the FS had some money to spend on the NCT this year. They got us about half of what we need, and we hope to get the rest next year.

They come twice as long, but Pete (who's currently on a trip) had already cut them in half and taken bundles of them out to the trail.

Our job today was to place them correctly and screw them in place. Notice the chalk line for side-to-side placement, and Pete also made the jigs so we could get them in the center of the decking board easily.

Here's what they look like- although I see that these few aren't screwed down yet. I haven't done the post yet, but I've been thinking about showing the various kinds of traction aids used on trail structures with my personal favorites. Maybe that will be a good follow-up tomorrow. However, these have to be at the top of the list. They will last much better than any of the other commonly used choices and are less likely to break and become a hazard themselves.

Of course, the open area of Sterling Marsh is almost always beautiful!

Could you tell who was screwing down that strip? My buddy Bill came for this workday! We went out for a little lunch afterwards. We had lots of trail stuff to talk about- follow up from the Adirondacks, current projects and hiking dreams.

I even did a little gardening after I got home, and worked on a couple other things a bit. Beautiful weather and a good energy day!

Miles hiked in 2025: 377.
Miles hiked on the NCT in 2025: 226.6

North Country Trail, Jenks TH south about a mile and back

See Boardwalk Dedication