Kentuckiana Hiker’s Review

Too much wet weather and just bad timing has made a last minute hike at  Otter Creek park nearly impossible. But a last minute 4 day trip to the Smokies has emerged and I’m really psyched.

If you ever get the urge in January, you can get cheap rooms in Pigeon Forge at very nice hotels for less than 30 bucks a night, and you’re only 15 minutes from the park.

Laurel Falls is on our agenda, and I’m hoping for snow Friday at higher elevations. I’ll be sure to give you the trail rundown when I get back, and I will be taking LOTS of pictures.

Happy New Year.

Well, it looks doubtful that I will manage an Otter Creek hike before January 1st.

Why?

Well, the park is notoriously muddy, and we’ve had lots of rain, snow and ice over the last 2 weeks. Combine that with the fact that most trailheads have limited access and it makes for bad luck. And the forecast is for warm wet weather for a while longer.

On top of that, I might make a return to the Smokey Mountains for Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge next weekend.

I hope you and yours have a joyous and safe holiday season.

Look out for 2009, there will be a lot of content coming.

Cheers,

JG/GJ

I visited Otter Creek Park over the weekend, and the shutdown of the park due on January 1st is well underway. Several sections of the park are already closed to car access, including the Garnettsville Picnic Area and the Rockhaven Picnic Area near the Ohio River.

Trails remain open, but access is limited. I hope to at least do one circuit of the park loop before New Years Day. I’ll keep you posted.

From today’s Courier Journal

“Several state parks would be forced to close and as many as 300 state workers in the cabinet that oversees the parks would be laid off next year if the state doesn’t get the money from Gov. Steve Beshear’s proposal to raise the cigarette tax, the top parks official warned yesterday.”

Basically decreased hours and closures. No specific parks are listed in the article.

I’m not a poet.

Nor do I pretend to be one.

But I do feel sometimes that inside, I can feel poetry. Not always in verse, but most often in the vocabulary of the great outdoors.

That is where I’m most sensitive to the rhythms of poetry. I can find interest in the monuments of man, but I find wonder in works of Earth. And wonder is a reward to cherish.

I’m 44 years old, staring down 45, and no matter which trail I choose, let me walk a few hundred yards under a canopy of trees or along a shoreline, and inside I can feel the transformation.

I become 10 again.

Hiking can be many different things for many different people. It can be exercise for some and it can be a journey to a destination for others.

Hiking for me has become an amalgam of many things. A means to health, but mostly a vehicle to that 10 year old wonder and the hope of seeing that thing I’ve never seen before.

If I could pass along one bit of advice to you before your next hike, in the park, on the beach, in the forest, or anywhere it would be this:

Along the way, stop and listen.

Catch your breath, just stand still for one minute, and hear the beat of a music most profound.

In those minutes that I stop along the trail, I find the rewards in the effort of the hike and I drink in the aural conduit to my inner 10 year old.

Maybe it can work for you too.

Try it.

January:

This is the year that I started my love affair with the Great Smoky Mountains. I went to the Pigeon Forge Wilderness Wildlife Week for four great days in January this year and it truly opened my eyes. I still can’t believe it took 43 years for me to finally visit this truly magnificent National Park.

Wilderness Wildlife Week  is also a festival I highly recommend. The convention is held at the Pigeon Forge convention center and lasts 8 days. Registration and attendance is completely free. Each evening, you take a ticket and await the drawing for the next day’s guided trail hikes. Usually, each day includes up to 10 or 12 different guided hikes. You meet at the convention center in the morning, and then are taken by school bus to the trailhead of your choice. When the hike is over, a school bus will return you to the convention center.

And none of it costs a dime.

During my January stay, I hiked the Little River / Cucumber Gap loop and the Lower Mt. Camerer trails. I also got to go on a nature hike called an Owl Prowl, a favorite of the convention. On the final day, we took a driving tour of Cade’s Cove (my first time) before leaving for home. I’ve visited the park three more weekends since January, and I plan to hike the Appalachian Trail trough the Smokies in 2009 or 2010.

February:

February was a cold and snowy month in 2008. And I couldn’t motivate myself to get out for some cold weather hiking. But 2009 will be different.

March:

A deep run in the NCAA tournament for my Louisville Cardinals and an unusual March snow storm led to very little hiking for me. Again, this has to change in 2009.

April:

April of this year provided a couple more “firsts” for me. After reading about it in the local paper, I visited the Blackacre Conservancy in Jefferson County. What was amazing is that I had been driving past this small park for 20 years and I never knew it existed until the article appeared in the paper. In addition to a complete farm settlement that dates back to the 1700s, the Blackacre Conservancy also has several trails within the grounds. Driving into the park, the suburban surroundings disappear and you get the distinct feeling of traveling back through time.

My other “first” for April this year was spotting my first black bear on my return to the Smokey Mountains. I joined the IU Outdoor Adventure thematic community with my sister for a weekend trip. I joined the day hikers on a return trip to the Little River / Cucumber Gap loop and my first trip to Abram’s Falls in the Cade’s Cove section of the park. We were right on time for the dogwood and trillium season in the park. The black bear was spotted along Newfound Gap Road on the Tennessee side heading toward the top.

Another Sunday in April, my sister and mother joined me for a Spring romp in Bernheim Forest, about a 40 minute drive from Louisville. Bernheim is an arboretum and research forest that is a privately owned park but open to the public. It contains lots of great trails for all levels of ability and fitness, from shore nature walks to the epic 15 mile Millennium Trail through virgin forestland. This trip included lots of beautiful dogwoods and redbuds in bloom.

May:

I often go for hikes in search of photographs, and that was pretty much the story for the month of May in 2008. I returned to Blackacre for an open house which included traditional foods and horse carriage rides. I also scouted one of my favorite trout streams one weekend. Lynn Camp Creek is stocked yearly with rainbow trout for 5 months from March through July. It had been 2 years since I’d last fished the creek, so I decided to hike and scout it along with my camera. I was treated to some of my best pictures of the year. Last but not least, I walked a bit at city parks in Louisville, namely Long Run and William F. Miles.

June:

June kicked off a very hot Summer this year in Kentuckiana. I managed a day trip to Clifty Falls State Park in Indiana, just an hour north on the Ohio river near Madison Indiana. Clifty Falls has a special place in my heart since I’ve been going there almost 40 years. It’s a unique habitat with 4 different falls of over 60 ft in height. I highly recommend check it out if you get the chance. Be prepared to climb stairs if you want to go hiking.

Another first for the year was my third trip to the Smokies in 2008, but with my Mom on her first trip to the park in her 88 years. We had a great time, didn’t get to hike as much as we’d like due to bear activity, and we also spotted for Mom her first black bear sighting in Cade’s Cove. I also saw the largest puddling of swallowtails I’ve ever seen. Mom enjoyed the trip immensely and I drove her all around the park, from Greenbrier to Clingman’s Dome. The rhododendrons were in full bloom too!

Occasionally, you get lucky on the trail.

With the cold weather, it’s tough to find anyone to join me on a cloudy day with snow showers. Such was the case when I was hiking Scott’s Gap Loop in Jefferson Forest earlier this week on a gloomy late afternoon. Walking alone though isn’t so bad when you get to stop mid trail and listen to sounds of the woods.

This day, I spotted a rafter of turkeys as I quietly came over the rise of a hill, the wind in the oak leaves still left in the trees had drowned out my footsteps. As I spotted them, I froze and counted seven birds before a large male with a nice beard raised his head and caught a glimpse of me. With a yelp, the other birds raised their heads and made tracks downhill and into the brush. As I watched them go, I realized that even if I had my camera out as I crested the hill (which of course I did not), I doubt I would have gotten a good picture of the elusive gobblers. Sometimes, you can only bring back the memories.

Later, on the same hike, there is a section of the Scott’s Gap Loop trail I call Long Hill. It’s a steady uphill climb of about three to four hundred yards, the kind that seems to never end and your hamstrings burn for the last fifty yards or so. As I turned the corner at the start of the long hill, a young buck white tail deer froze in the middle of the trail, then bolted flashing his tail. I managed to follow the white flashing through the trees for a few seconds, but in about three breaths he was gone. Once again, I glanced at the camera case clipped at my shoulder with a small carribiner and laughed.

As I came to the base of the rocky bald hill that marks the end of the trail when you hike Scott’s Gap Loop counter-clockwise, I heard an unfamiliar call in the sparse tree tops above me. At first, I thought it was the honk of Canadian geese, but this was slightly different. It was more of a trill or a coo than a honk, but almost as loud. As I searched the sky, I spotted a formation of Sandhill Cranes. This time, I had the time to get out my camera and bring home a few photos.

Between now and January 1st, I’m going to make sure and hike Otter Creek Park as many times as possible. There are 2 8 mile+ trails as well as many other shorter trails. I’ll make sure to get a picture library of the park before or if it closes at the beginning of the new year.

This is really upsetting. Otter Creek Park is located near Ft. Knox Kentucky and has been a long time destination for hiking, fishing, and even swimming for folks in Kentuckiana.

This story in the Louisville Courier Journal today says that the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife wants to take over management of the park. I’m keeping my finger’s crossed.

I took a few pictures in the park on a fishing trip with a friend of mine from 2 Summers ago. Check them out here.