Maps are Done!

 Well, my brain is fried, but the maps are done for the entire hike of the Sheltowee Trace Trail, Kentucky and Tennesee, 350+ miles.

One section is still closed due to a tornado, and that will cut out 9 miles, but they are trying to extend the southern end to get to a town and that may be done. I have sent that question and one other. Hoping for an actual response.

The guidebook is moderately useful. I mean, the trail would be very difficult without it, but it's not in a standardized format, so it's hard to tell what parts of the trail are single track, jeep road, forest road, etc. The FarOut app software is good for this trail.

Finally, I feel as if I know what I'm doing a little bit. I just can't get a sense of where a trail fits into anything on a phone app. It would be no big deal if I were familiar with this trail, but I've only hiked the southernmost 2.3 miles in 2025, and a few pieces in 2019 when Marie and I went to Red River Gorge. No blog posts from that- computer died. Anyway, now I feel much more confident.

I've left all these large, so you can click on them. This is the overview map from the guidebook.

I created 12 maps with a slightly closer view and elevations. Remember, these are condensed. Most of the elevation changes are in the 500-foot range.

And... drum roll... 90 maps with close topographic detail. There are 2 to 4 of these a day, and I will hike with these.

I hunted up a couple of pix from the Red River Gorge trip with Marie. Maybe I'll share some of this as I get too busy to think preparing for this hike since it was a superlative experience. I'll see a fair amount of places like this. Almost all of the trail is in the Daniel Boone National Forest.

And this is where I discovered the Sheltowee Trace Trail as it overlapped with some of the trails we were hiking.

The really sad part of the story is that Marie is not going on this trip at all. Her back is bothering her a lot. But Diane, Bill, David S, and Sue C are all doing parts or supporting parts.

And now, I am really DONE for the day.

See Obsessed with Maps

Obsessed with Maps

 Months ago, I mentioned that I hoped to do a fairly long hike this fall. I had started planning and got a decent start. But that's all it was- a start.

Now, that hike is looming! I need to leave home on September 8. Will go to the NCTA and Buckeye Trail joint Trail Fest, and then head south from there to hike.

I feel that I need to do my own paper maps. There is a FarOut electronic map and a guidebook, but I'm not really comfortable without paper too. And I'm planning to hike 350 miles. That's a lot of maps at the scale I want.

I had finished the overview maps. They look like this, and help put the trail in the landscape. That's important, because most of it is pretty remote, in the Daniel Boone National Forest, and it's not like you can just find a nearby town to help locate the trail. There are only 12 of these maps for the whole trail. They also have the elevation profile for each day.

The real problem is the detailed topographic maps. There are 31 hiking days, and I have 26 maps done which gets me through 6 days. Long way to go.

All that to say I spent most of the day sitting at the computer. Can you say stiff?

I also spent a good chunk of time editing. Oh, and finished cleaning up the bathroom/toilet mess.

See Off and Running to the Next Adventure

Off and Running Toward the Next Adventure

OK, I'm 77. It's just a number right? Well, pretty much, but I can't get my body to do some of the crazy endurance tests I subjected it to when I was younger.

Nevertheless, life is just not right if I'm not planning another adventure. I've had the resources for this idea for a couple of months, but this holiday I got busy about starting a plan. I've already been talking to several of the usual suspects, and a couple of new ones, about possible participation in all or part.

Yes, I'm looking at the Sheltowee Trace Trail in Kentucky and Tennessee. I first discovered this trail in 2019, and purposely hiked a short section of it January 2024 on my trip south. But I want to do the whole thing. And I think I still can if I stay in shape. Other things that are never under my control could derail plans, but that is true of any hike.

Computer spreadsheet itinerary (will change, but you have to start somewhere), FarOut map guide, paper guidebook, first paper map.

Looking at September/October of 2026. 335 miles. Lots of hills. Almost certainly some backpacking and some slackpacking.

I finished Dale Painter's book about his "hiking life" today. Toward the end, he made himself more vulnerable by sharing things that changed, and how he had to adapt. He told honestly about how he experienced an event on a remote trail out west that shook his confidence to the core.

It made me remember some of my feelings leading up to my NCT hike, 2021-2023, and I thought I'd share those here as well. This kind of stuff did not go on the blog entries for the hike. I learned early on that sounding anything but positive and upbeat there led to lots of reactions like "You need to get off the trail," "What do you think you are doing?" "You need to be more careful," etc. I wasn't going to field all those comments, so I quit sharing most of that sort of thing. But it led to giving the impression that I was so tough there were very few "issues."

So here are a couple of events that happened prior to the big hike that made me wonder if I was being a little too crazy to think I could do it.

You may remeber that in 2018 I set out to follow and map the very poorly marked Midland to Mackinac Trail. My plan was to backpack what I thought was a reasonable 12 miles a day. After countless frustrating hours (in that pack) trying to figure out where the heck the trail was supposed to be, and the final blow, a somewhat dangerous following of the blue blazes into the middle of a thigh-deep marsh only to reach a river I could not cross, and then I had to wade back out again to where I last had been on high ground, I switched to day-hiking and usually 10-mile days. (I found out later they changed the trail because of that marsh, but didn't take out the old blazes!!!!) So, I finished the hike, but much slower than planned and not in the way I had desired.

Then in 2020, I planned a 100-mile hike in southern (hilly) Indiana. Because of Covid, even state land was closed for most of the early season. I was finally able to go in June, but jumped directly from local near-freezing temps to days being in the 90s. My body does not like this at all. A couple of days I only made 6 miles. The defining moment was lying flat in the damp gravel beside a nearly dry stream for an hour trying to cool my core enough to hike on even to a campsite. My plan had been to do 15-mile days to see if I thought I could do a sustained 15/day on the NCT- I had decided by then that I was going to try the NCT hike. I ended up only doing 45 miles of the Indiana plan.

In both cases, I had to request change-of-plan help from the people who were spotting me, etc. I don't like doing this. Backpacking requires flexibility almost above all, but I still don't like imposing on folks.

Anyway... I had now just had what I considered to be two complete failures at planning hikes I would be able to complete. I had quite a lot of angst about the NCT plan. About 60% of me didn't even want to tell people I was doing it. The other 40% reminded me that one of my goals was to educate people as to how every piece of the NCT has something special, and if I were going to do that I couldn't keep it secret. Conflicting goals!

Although it's one of the best media interviews with me, ever, I sort of hated that I was interviewed as I went through Yankee Springs. I'd only been on the NCT hike for 13 days and 185 miles- barely a start- I had no idea if I'd be able to sustain that level of hiking for a year.

And yet, I was allowed to complete that entire hike, (just that disappointing break in the winter- but the western UP is unforgiving, and snow came early- I could not stay ahead of it. But I did complete the hike with a slightly altered plan.

I tell Marie that I'm doing denial about ageing. And I pretty much am! But I'm determined to keep hiking at some level for as long as I can walk. However, those of you who call me amazing should realize that I'm no more amazing than you are. I have an Amazing God who lets me take on some big adventures, and lets me complete most of them.

Did some regular work, and worked on this plan in the afternoon. Plus some MORE kitchen cleanup.

See the short hike at the southern terminus of the Sheltowee

Stop 10- Nikki... and Bill

  This is stop number 10, and states 13 and 14. This will by my last unique state for this trip. I still have to go through Indiana and Michigan, but I also did them while outward bound. MI, IN, IL, IA, OK, MO, TX, LA, MS, AL, GA, TN, KY, OH

I'm with Nikki at Moondoggie Liveree. I met her two years ago tomorrow! (when she hosted me and my trailer- and Bill and Denali- on my hike) And look who else showed up. It's Bill! This feels like an amazing reunion.

I had something special in mind for my mid-drive-hike-break. The southern terminus of the Sheltowee Trace trail wasn't out of the way at all. I thought I was going to share some links from when Marie and I hiked a couple other pieces of it when we did our Red River Gorge trip. However, there were no blog posts from that hike. (A real shame, because it was gorgeous) Then I remembered that it was the trip from electronics 7734. My computer fried itself. In fact, that was the computer where I actually lost some of the contents of the hard drive. I think I posted some pics on Facebook from my phone, but then the phone also went belly up. Anyway... That trip had some GREAT hikes, and it was when I discovered this trail.

Sheltowee is the name the Shawnee gave to Daniel Boone. It means Big Turtle. The trail is now 319 miles long and runs through the Big South Fork National River Area, and Daniel Boone National Forest. The turtle on the marker is its logo.

This is a National Recreation Trail. NRTs may or may not be for foot travel. This one is. They do not have the same status as National Scenic or Historic Trails, but they are recognized at a federal level. The primary feature of today's hike was rock walls. Very cool rock walls.

This ran along the banks of the Clear Fork river. I did a loop that was uphill both ways. I'll explain that later. After the day and a half of rain, the river was running high. In some places it was calmer, but in other places the water was turbulent enough to form standing waves over rocks.

All that rain made every small creek run stong, and there were numerous waterfalls that probably don't even happen most of the year.

Here's how the trail was uphill in both directions. The river makes a complete horseshoe bend. I started at the middle of the bend and walked upstream on the west portion. Then the trail climbs the ridge between the two parts of the river. That was about 200 feet higher. Then the trail does go downhill to get to the eastern part of the river. On the way down it follows a little creek.

Once you reach the river again, you are now walking south, but the river is now flowing north because of that bend! So you are walking uphill again to get back to the parking area. Tricky, right? If I had gone the other direction, it would have been mostly downhill. Of course, this is all semantics since it's a loop. The net elevation change is zero, but it feels weird.

I was able to do a loop that included 2.3 miles of the Sheltowee Trace, and then 1.7 return miles on the Burnt Mill Bridge Trail to get back to the car. With the sections Marie and I did in Red River Gorge, I've hiked perhaps 10 miles of the Sheltowee. I might be able to figure it out from my records, but if I ever did hike this whole trail, I'd just do the segments again that we did in 2019 for the continuity. Junctions were well marked, and the trail has been well-constructed, not just thrown across the landscape.

Other highlights include seeing a little garter snake in January.

And, finding American climbing fern, Lygodium palmatum. I MAY have seen this one in the Red River Gorge, but I'll have to check back through the pictures. At any rate, I haven't seen it very often.

I entered Ohio at dusk on the Simon Kenton bridge. Not a great picture, but I thought the lights were cool.

And early this morning, I discovered I was driving a portion of the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail!

Just one more detail for the day. Owen did not want to be left out. He is Lin and Joe's cat, but he sort of thinks he's a dog.

The weather was wonderful. Warmest day of the trip yet. I hiked in shirtsleeves and it was 60 degrees. When I was with Nikki two years ago, we experienced what turned out to be the coldest temperatures of the entire NCT hike with one morning at -6 degrees!

Sheltowee Trace and Burnt Mill Loop Trail, Tennessee, 4.0 miles

See Rainy Day Fun