I woke up around 7:30 next to Dog Slaughter Creek's eternal rush towards the cumberland river, made instant oats sans a stove, and mulled over what was ahead for me this Saturday. I wasn't due to meet up with Jack til two in the afternoon, and I had camped only about 3 miles from our designated meeting place, cumberland falls state park, so I planned to make like molasses in my riverside crawl. After I packed up I detoured away from the river upstream of the creek, path climbing over boulders and around some precarious ledges, towards Dog Slaughter Falls.
Dog slaughter falls was one of the first hikes i did alone, in the heat of august, however I'd only ever seen it in the latter half of the year. I was hype to see it swollen with the force of spring. Coming up to dog slaughter falls for the first time half a year ago was my first taste of the Daniel Boone National Forest, the first taste of how nice solitude could be. Later in the fall i returned here with my friends Neil and Sean. We wheedled down the interstate, made a stop at the Wildcat Harley Davidson, eating into our daylight. Heading back from the falls the day was quickly disappearing from the forest. We got back to baby harold where I left him on a dusty gravel forest road and Sean and I shared a blunt and the glory of being blasted under a sheet of stars unfettered by light pollution.
I passed underneath a rock overhang and the falls came into view, beyond the huge boulders dropped into the water. I was here alone again sitting and chilling and biding my time, waiting for the sun to make it past the tall trees of the forest, for the warmth to hit the gorge and touch my skin, for the day to grow longer and for the time to creep towards when Jack would get his foot on the floor southward (time passes slowly when you're lost in a dream). I set my pack down and mounted a boulder right in front of the falls. I danced just to make sure i still could. I leapt off and bear-crawled up a boulder twice as girthy as the first. From this height i could lift my face and be kissed by the morning sun. I was paying tribute to the river valley i would call home for two nights. To the falls that instilled within me the love of Kentucky's wilderness, to this land i was so lucky to have in my backyard.
I waited, watched the sun climb out of the trees, observing the sheet of white dawntime clouds break into wisps into blemishless blue. The roar of the falls filling the valley would dim as the year stretched on, only to return with the wet of spring, as always. For every breathless climb to a ridgeline there would be a downhill race to a creek, for every pulse of the wake against the bank there is the rowboat chugging by as its catalyst. You sit and stare entranced by the river and it will always flow on. Or some dumb spiritual shit like that.
dog slaughter falls at dawn. she girthy!!!!
I said goodbye to the gorge home to dog slaughter falls around 11, keeping on along the brambly banks where huge boulders and rock structures abound, fallen from the cliffline above. I wish I could have taken more pictures of the behemoth rocks but at this point my phone had been on 1% since dawn and I wouldn't get power til Jack pulled up. I crossed a footbridge over catfish creek and through puddles where the water of streams and cliffside waterfalls made their way to the river. The trail passed through a natural tunnel of suspended rock, under the shade of more towering rock overhangs from which I viewed the rapids of the Cumberland scintillating in the late morning sun.
The trace gets rerouted a couple miles from cumberland falls because of all that bramble, lack of maintenance shit i guess. I detoured up Rock House Trail, which was a breathwrenching climb to get further up the banks. I bumbled along, feeling tiny in the shade of house-sized boulders and streams and waterfalls dropping right next to the trail. The trail dropped back down to sandy riverside banks, where a scruffy-looking man fished and some teenagers looked about ready to take a dip. I forged my way with curiosity towards a side trail further down on the banks going towards a crop of boulders. I mounted one and crawled to the top of the rock, where it was marked by lichen and moss and pocked by water-filled dips.
I lifted my head and she caught me off-guard, upstream just a bit. Cumberland falls, whom I'd walked nearly 50 miles so far to see. I took my pack and my shoes off and sat for a while, baking in the sun on this big ass rock, before the glory of Kentucky's niagara. It was an explosion of a band of white, rushing water in a sheet of blue-green that was the river. Right across the river was Eagle Falls, which falls from a rock ledge, forked unevenly into two streams, down to a pool of water by the side of the river. I watched across the river as adventure-seekers waded in the water by the falls, families in crowds made it down the bankside trail ensconced by huge boulders. The river valley was a cacaphony of rushing water, the river, and the two visible falls, and the pulsing wake against the shore and the rocks, the breeze lifted my spirit as the sun beat down from a perfectly clear blue sky, onto the murky teal of the river, the lush green of the year-long trees blanketing the slopes and and the barren whites and browns of trees soon to be touched by the color of spring. It all felt sepia-toned, the din swallowed my mind, I wanted to stay bleaching up on that rock forever.
But soon a need to piss eclipsed my want to sit and stare and I continued on the trail towards the park, up a flight of stairs, away from trail onto the gentle paving of sidewalks and overlooks where couples and families gathered, enjoying the springtime sunshine. Despite quarantine Cumberland Falls State Park was popping, a few days after i got home from my trip it was closed. It'd been a while since I'd looked at my face in a mirror and using the bathroom at the park I couldn't help but think, got damn, this is surreal and I lowkey look kinda cute for 4 days into roughin it. It was around noon now, I'd asked the unkempt fishing man for the time, and i paced the park grounds and sat on a bench near the entrance til jack showed up a little before schedule, around 1:30.
I saw him coming up with all his scruff and he took his pack and loaded it and me into his car. We got to work attempting to charge as fully as possible my phone and the two powerbanks I had, went on a drive to a nearby gas station for hot hamborgers in between some limpid buns (it was delicious and I was taken aback at the dismal price of gas when we pulled up, we love a recession), and I talked his head off about the shit I'd bore lone witness to over the past few days.
I originally planned to hike as long as I was able to, leaving the woods tuesday night right before I was due to clock into work on wednesday morning. But leading up to Saturday I'd been contemplating cutting my trip short, to just cumberland falls, or just to monday. I realized I was underprepared for my first trip, having run out of fuel and dealing with wet boots. Storms were forecasted tuesday, and that day I would have to ford the wide, deep Rock Creek and I was afraid it'd be swollen by stormwaters by the time I got to it. Jack also asked me to come home--things were escalating back home, everyone was wearing masks and stores were limiting the amount of people allowed in at a time. But he also said he just missed me. And I missed everyone back in Lexington with all my heart too.
Chiefin alone by a creek electric blue, or by a lake alive with the vibrancy of the sunset, you just want the people you love to be able to share in that moment with you.
But again I am stubborn and naive and after paring down my supplies of food and switching out sweaty dank clothes for new, I was walking along hwy 90, crossing over the cumberland river on the Gatliff Bridge. I left whitley county for mccreary, where i'd be following the cumberland upstream for another few miles, on the opposite side this time. I left the boundary of Cumberland Falls State Park, continuing down under looming rock structures. By 6 I had found my campsite for the night, a streamside piece of sandy flat beach criss-crossed by ATV tracks with a fire pit littered with beercans from riders of past.
freaking it in mccreary county, river beyond the trees on the bank
I committed the remainder of my evening to dipping in the river, current refreshing against my bare skin. As my dinnertime pasta boiled I air-dried on the beach, solitary figure on the river. The only other signs of life were the rare sounds of distant speedboats, whoever had set up this campsite was long gone. The sun dipped back behind the treeline, the orange-hued light of dusk drained from the valley, the stars shuffled into position high above my lonely tent on the banks, and soon I was asleep in my final night in the Daniel Boone National Forest.
flanked by cliffs, the cumberland river valley captured my heart
No comments:
Post a Comment