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 2

 Turtles on the pavement! We just had to take a fun picture.

Diane walked with us for a short distance. The trail crosses I-64 on a high concrete bridge on route 799. I reall would like a picture of it from below, but this will have to do.

We turned on a gravel Forest Road. You knew it wouldn't be long before I did some botany, right. This one is new to me, and as you can guess from the name it's alien. Chinese bushclover, Lespedeza cuneata. Too bad, it's kind of pretty.

This is a nice find, though. Native. Blue Mistflower, Conoclineum coelestinum. It used to be a Eupatorium.

It looked like the whole day was going to be on the gravel road, but some sections have been taken off onto real trail.

Unfortunately, we took one that wasn't part of the trail until we realized our mistake and turned around, so we hiked 0.4 extra miles.

The best views were at power line crossings. This area is full of these pointy hills.

I struggled more than I'd like to admit on the last two miles. When we fishished hiking it was 91° with a feels like 103°. I just don't function well at those temps. It's still 91° at 6 pm.

But we finally made it to Eagle Lake and the trailhead that is right on the Moorehead State University Campus.

Diane takes care of us. This chiken alfredo was awesome for dinner. Yes, I ate more than this. I had already wolfed some down before I remembered a picture.

Let's hike in Kentucky in the fall she said (me). It will be better than summer she said. Hopefully that will be true soon. I really can't do these temperatures.

Miles hiked in 2026: 348.7
Miles hiked on the Sheltowee Trace: 24.5

Sheltowee Trace, KY. Co Rd 799 to Eagle Lake TH, 10.7 miles

See Sheltowee Trace- Day 1

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

Three Amigos Roughing It

 We three are getting very comfortable with working together in camp. (Diane, Bill, me)

Today was all about reorganizing the stuff and getting ready to hike tomorrow. Of course that included some errands in town, so you can see how hard we roughed it. (Not much). We picked up a roasted chicken and a bag of salad with chocolate for dessert.

We have those who would like us to share our dinner.

There are four of them, and they come right up to the table. One looks older and three are young and skinny. We are trying to be really careful about the tents and car doors. Diane got a picture of one of them begging.

The larger visitors aren't very worried about people either. This is right next to our campsite.

Tomorrow we hike. We checked out the trailheads and are all packed up! Hoping to be out at the crack of dawn.

See To Kentucky

Ohio Trail Fest- Friday

 Started the day with the longest hike that is offered. It was about 7.75 miles total with 5.25 of them being Buckeye/North Country Trail, and the rest a connection to loop back to the cars. It was hilly, muddy, humid and buggy. Perfect! There was a pretty good sized group, but I didn't get any pictures that show how many.

We took a snack break at one point where there were fewer bugs. The two younger women were our hike leaders. And Juki the pup.

I had a lot of trouble identifying where exactly we were. I didn't realize the BT maps weren't installed on this phone. (They are now.) But I think this is Salt Fork Creek.

One couple that was on the hike were Kim and Bob Rosatti from New York. Bob is the volunteer who has taken over Mary Coffin's role in trying to complete trail through the Adirondacks. Between him and Will Brazill- the NY/VT Regional Trail coordinator that Bill and I met last year things are really coming together.

In the afternoon, I attended one of the workshops on some Ohio history. I didn't know that Salt Fork State Park is the largest SP in Ohio.

Then I had to finish my presentation for tomorrow on the Long-Distance Hiker program. Got that done!

Nice short talk by Mary Mertz the Director of the Ohio State Parks. She really supports the Buckeye and North Country Trails.

After dinner, they showed an award-winning movie called Ohio- Wild at Heart that was really beautiful and worthy of awards.

There was a campfire after that with Bigfoot stories. I skipped that. I'm pretty overwhelmed with people stuff. All good, but I think I'm at my limit for the day. Back in the tent.

Milies walked in 2026: 319.8
NCT miles hiked in 2026: 128

See Arrived at Salt Fork

At Marianne's

 I think you are just going to get one picture. I am safely at Marianne's for the night, but not without one little adventure.

First of all I left home 4.5 hours later than I wanted to. OK, that's not too bad for me. But it did meant that I wouldn't quite make it to Marianne's before dark.

So, I'm under 10 miles from her place and one of my tires decides to expire. Not just go flat... it shredded. Now, I'm on the side of a 4 lane highway in the dark. I can see the Welcome to Ohio sign from where I am. But... what town should I call for service? And should I choose Michigan or Ohio? Didn't matter. The only numbers Google would give me were 800 numbers that just dispatch someone to wherever.

However, the guy I got spoke Spanglish so bad I couldn't understand him. When I finally figured out what he was saying, they can't take you anywhere unless you know where you want to go. What? I'm on a trip... I have no idea what places are in the area.

I called 911 thinking they might at least give me a couple of local numbers. I explained that there had not been an accident, and there was no health emergency, but I couldn't seem to get assistance. They said they would send someone, but wanted to know the address of where I was. Now, this seems odd to me. Last time I called 911 in a much more rural area, and I tried to tell them where I was, they said they just pulled the coordinates from my phone. So they can't do that in the greater metro Detroit-Toledo area? Weird.

But, it was easy to explain where I was. Southbound on US 23, right at the state line. I could literally see the sign. I offered to give them the coordinates, but they said they'd find me.

OK, let's clarify something. I know how to change a tire. But I wasn't interested in doing so in the dark on the edge of a busy highway. I am aware of way too many people who have died that way.

A huge SUV with flasher-flinger blue and red and white lights pulls up. I couldn't see a thing, but the guy finally comes far enough away that I could tell it was a Sheriff deputy.

Can you believe it!!!! He changed the tire. I had emptied the back of the car and gotten the tire out while I was waiting for them to come. Of course the car is loaded for a month of camping, right. But I succeeded. He said, "We don't usually do this..." Maybe looking like a little old lady was good for something tonight.

With the lights from his vehicle, we could see what we were doing, and the flashers kept traffic away from the edge of the road.

Anyway, I got to Marianne's an hour later than expected, and then we chatted for a while.

I'll deal with the tire in the morning. I hope I didn't ruin the wheel.

See On the Way to the Train

Auxier Ridge Trail

  September 20, 2019. We decided to take on a longer, hillier hike. We did the Auxier Ridge Trail- about six miles along a rdige, then down into the central valley and then back up again. There are two interesting, named rocks you see from the trail. This is Haystack.

And this one is called Courthouse Rock.

This is another hike from which you get awesome views of the Red River Gorge.

After you climb back up the other side, you visit Double Arch. See the narrow slit above the main arch? This view is actually from the first ridge, because once you are under the arch, you can't see the slit.

The climbs down and up are so steep there are a lot of stairs to accomplish the elevation changes.

Here we are with the view from Double Arch behind us.

We felt pretty good about this challenging hike.

In other news today: Things are getting real about needing to be ready to leave. I worked on my projects, I mowed half the yard, I got almost all my gear checked in. I crossed another big item off my list, but all I really did is put it away because I've lost a computer file I needed to do it right. It must have been one of the things I truly lost in the great computer crash that happened on the trip I'm showing you today. I'll have to rebuild it, and that isn't happening in the next two days.

See Natural Bridge and Rocks