Last week I did the toughest hike I think I've ever done.
The Honey Creek loop trail is one that I had been told is difficult, poorly marked, and has a lot of side trails that could take you a long way in the wrong direction. It's also absolutely beautiful, and I really wanted to try it. I planned carefully - I didn't do the entire loop. The road cuts it in half, so I would just do half. I even brought my bicycle so I could ride the section along the road and save some time.
I don't usually bother bringing a backpack on the day hikes I've been doing here, but this time I did. I used my Camelpak so that I wouldn't have to carry a water bottle, and would have my hands free. I brought my little emergency kit (poncho, thermal foil blanket, whistle & compass) and a first aid kit, including ace bandages. (One of my worst fears is spraining an ankle on a hike. Partly because I actually did that once, when I was by myself, and hadn't thought to tell anyone where I was going...) I had told several of my coworkers that I was going to do this trail, and they were all somewhat startled to hear that I was going to tackle Honey Creek...
I copied a walk-through from one of the hiking books that we sell. I even planned my route so that if I did get lost, I could follow the creek downstream to the river, and hopefully find my way back to the trail there!
After all that preparation, I did something stupid - I got a very late start. I didn't get up very early, and then I remembered I needed to give my half of the dorm a good cleaning because some new people were going to be checking in, and my side always gets checked as well. Things just took longer than I expected, and it was 10:45 by the time I was ready to go.
In an alternate universe, I would have realized that it was really late to be starting this hike, and switched to another one, saving Honey Creek for another time. But I was so committed to the idea at this point that I went anyway. I turned out to be lucky, but I will definitely be more careful of that in the future.
The drive out took a while, but it was beautiful. I parked the car at the very end of the road, by the Honey Creek overlook. Of course I went to the overlook first. It was worth the drive just for that view.
I got all my stuff together, and decided to eat part of my lunch before starting. It was around 11:30 that I got on my bike and started riding back up the road - and I do mean up, because it was a long gradual uphill. Finally it flattened out a bit, and I was at the other trailhead. I locked my bike to the sign and headed out onto the trail at just around noon. (Again, this should have made warning bells go off in my head...)
This is one short section of the Sheltowee Trace Trail, which is 319 miles long, and the John Muir Trail (that middle icon is meant to be his silhouette.)
The first part of the trail was pretty easy, following the creek.
A funny little fungus.
Looking down at the stream from on top of a little cliff, and then the trail took me over and around and down...
I was just standing by that tree to take the previous photo, from fifteen feet above the creek! Check out that cross-bedding in the rock layers...
One of the characteristics of this trail is that for the most part, it is not developed at all. This was one of the better creek crossings I came to.
Some steep root steps, surrounded by golden leaves. There started to be a bit more up and down to the trail after this.
These snags may have been chestnut trees - it would explain why there were so many dead trees in one spot.
There was a golden carpet on the trail in some places.
I was watching carefully for a side trail that would take me to Honey Creek Falls. It basically followed a little side tributary over to the main channel.
Tricky ground to cover - this is typical for a lot of the main trail as well.
Just around the corner - there it was! I also noticed a lot of tiny streams of water trickling out of the rock wall just above the ground.
It was hard to get a good shot of this, but the water was low enough that I could walk out on some rocks for a little better view.
Looking downstream from the falls.
The smaller falls, from the walls.
It's rather unnerving to look up and see this hanging over your head...
This was the way I came in and out. With so much of the path being nothing but bare rock, it was the roots that provided the most footing. In fact, I barely avoided a bad slip because I caught myself on a root.
This is one of the more ambitious rock-eating trees that I've seen!
I went back to the main trail and ended up walking above the creek, upstream from the falls. Unfortunately there was no place to get a glimpse of them without being IN the creek!
Sourwood trees really do get bright red against a clear blue sky...
The trail settled down following the creek again for a bit, and then... THIS.
It doesn't look that bad in the picture, but that's smooth wet sandstone, almost as tall as me at the back, and if someone hadn't left a rope there I would have had to turn around at this point. I wasn't sure I'd be able to get up it, even so.
Looking back down... I said out loud that this was the scariest thing I've ever done on a hike. Little did I know...
The trail started climbing now, up along a ridge. I kept thinking I had taken a side trail that my walk-through warned me against, but I wasn't as far along as that.
These are chestnuts! One of those rare live individuals had a husk still hanging on it - the spikes had worn off but when I broke it open there they were! I didn't know it would be a bunch of smaller seeds - I assumed it would be one large nut!
I took a picture of the leaf to confirm the ID later.
Some places got pretty muddy - and then the trail ended up out on top - onto open rock, with just a few grasses and lichens.
It was quite a change in view! After this the trail climbed down again and started following the ridge below.
Some amazing colors revealed: minerals deposited by water trickling down over time.
Sometimes more water than others! This is Ice Castle Falls - it's a lot easier to find than Honey Creek Falls, because it's right along the main trail. There's even a sign!
The trail followed the creek from there.
It's a little blurry, but I had to try and capture just how much greenery was growing right out of the wall on the other side of the creek!
Along here was where it started getting a little rougher... And then there was THIS.
This was the first of several "boulder scrambles", in which the trail literally goes into a crevice between rocks and comes back out. There's usually no alternate route, either - at least nothing that wouldn't be even worse! (Here is where I started to suspect that the people who built this trail didn't quite have the concept of a "trail" down very well...)
At least the tunnel was separate from the stream - it circled back around to the water afterward. Here's looking upstream.
Another do-it-yourself crossing - but I did end up getting what I think might be the most beautiful photograph I took on the whole hike: golden leaves with water running over them.
This is looking downstream. I had to cross and make my way up and around this boulder. This was tricky because it was a steep slope, and what trail there was had been obliterated by a falling tree!
I'm always amazed at these huge rock walls just slicing the forest in half.
Strange colors, strange patterns - and as I turned a corner, strange caverns!
I had heard about hikers building cairns in these big overhanging rockshelters, and I've seen one or two sometimes, but never on this huge scale!
Not that the rock piles themselves are huge, but just that there were so many of them!
I didn't stop to build one, but I did pick up a rock to add to one of the taller piles. This will utterly mystify future archaeologists!
A little further along was another rockshelter, also full of cairns.
Now came the really hard part.
I knew to expect this from the walk-through - a ladder up to a rock shelf, leading to a tunnel that would require a belly-crawl. I had no intention of doing that. My walk-through said I could just follow the creek downstream a short distance and rejoin the trail from there.
I really lucked out that there hadn't been much rain lately! Just enough to make the creek pretty - but still leave relatively dry places to step.
Looking back upstream.
This was where I almost got lost. I think what happened was that I was so worried about missing the trail that I didn't go far enough downstream. I thought I saw a path, so I headed that way, and then I was climbing up the hillside and realized it wasn't a path, and then I saw a blue paint mark on a tree and headed for that. There were a lot of different blazes along the trail - already I had only stayed on track by following some unofficially painted arrows on rocks. And it looked like it was going to be on the other side of that big rock that the main trail went through. But there was nothing there, and when I tried following another blue blaze it didn't seem to be going anywhere. I tried making my way back down to the creek, but since I wasn't retracing my steps exactly, I slipped and almost fell pretty badly. As it was I sat down in some mud as I slid. But I got down okay.
It worked out - I finally found the trail - but that turned out to be the scariest thing I've ever done on a hike - getting lost. I know if I had to I could have retraced my steps all the way back the way I'd come - but when I was up on that hillside above the creek, not sure how to get back down, I was really freaking out. Trying not to freak out. I was literally making my way back to the creek to see about following it to the river, when I finally did come across the trail - and it was hard to tell even then, because this is not a well-worn trail. It's mostly stepping between rocks, and the trail markers are too far apart! If there is one thing that could be done to improve the trail, it would be to double the number of trail markers - because they don't do much good if you can't see where the next one is to know what direction to go.
Obviously it was a huge relief to get back on the trail - and it wasn't too hard to follow from this point on. There wasn't much more real climbing either - just smaller ups and downs.
And it really was beautiful.
I really do love rock-eating trees.
As beautiful as this is, I'm really glad I was able to walk on what trail there was, rather than trying to follow the creek all the way to the river and hoping to catch the trail again there.
Speaking of the river... Eventually I realized I could hear it! There are rapids along that section, and that dull roar way off in the distance was such a relief - I knew I was almost through the hardest part. Except for climbing back UP.
There were some side trails down to the river, but they would have required sliding down a steep slope and then trying to get back up - and I didn't need further complications! The reflections were beautiful through the trees, though.
The trail followed the river for a while, and then split off. Even now I was having trouble figuring out which way to go! Thankfully, I picked the right one.
Now the climbing started. A lot of these stairs - which were uneven, but still a lot easier than stepping up from rock to rock. I still had to stop a lot through here, though, because it was such a constant climb. And then, I saw it!
I've never been so happy to have to climb a huge long ladder! This meant I was almost back! I made it! The steps weren't even so bad, because they were all one consistent height!
I'm really glad this wasn't the direction I started from. Up is a lot easier than down when it comes to ladders.
One more short climb, and I was back at the overlook!
Here's the picture from earlier, just to show how long those shadows had gotten.
I took it real nice and slow walking up to the car! I took a few minutes just to drink water and stretch. I was completely wiped out. I drove out and collected my bike from the trailhead. (It didn't take nearly as long to get there by car!)
I hiked half of the 5.6 mile loop, and it took me almost exactly six hours. (Apparently that was the hardest section, too!) I am so glad I did it - it was so beautiful! But I am glad I didn't know just how hard it was going to be, or I might have chickened out. Of course, I might have gotten an earlier start, too... But it was worth it!
No comments:
Post a Comment