Knobstone Trail: Day 1

Miles: 7

Animals spotted: Big spider, turkey vultures, cardinals, lots of orange butterflies with black spots (viceroys? Eastern commas?), squirrels, flies, generous handful of other hikers 

I now work at a place that guarantees me Sundays and Mondays off, meaning I’ll be taking full advantage of these consecutive days off and trying to go on one-night backpacking trips as often as possible. I was researching long-distance trails in the US and found out about the Knobstone Trail, which runs for 58 miles in Indiana, just across the border from Kentucky.

Whenever I thought about Indiana, I pictured the midwest... flat... corn? Agricultural price supports? But I found myself surprised at the subtle beauty of the land and also the strenuous nature of the Knobstone Escarpment, full of hills and valleys and babbling streams.

Elijah dropped me off Sunday a little after 3 pm, and I set out on a perfectly blue day from Deam Lake. Before I really got started the trail took me up on a bank with a good view of the lake and hills surrounding it, and I sat there eating some bagged tuna and getting hyped up, watching the idyllic scene of families on the beach and friends kayaking together. 

The trail was really well-maintained and blazed, which is a nice surprise coming from hiking the Sheltowee, where it seems like blazes are rare and every sign is riddled with bullet holes. Every mile was marked by its own little sign. It didn’t seem too desolate, as I had service nearly everywhere and a road was never far.

As the sun was beginning to set on Sunday, I came down from a set of knobs to this savannah-looking field area void of especially tall trees. Near a stream some signage pointed to “Jackson Trailhead”, I had just about passed the 6-mile mark. Bathed in the light of early evening, this was the point where I really embraced Indiana’s beauty. 

 

A wide field with subtle hills in the distance, under a huge, blemishless blue sky. Hawks circled in the distance. Far away, I saw a town on the left side of my field of vision.

I realized the trail was leading up to climbing the big hill in the second picture above the caption, apparently called Round Knob. It was a hard climb but every time I turned to look back at the land I could see more of it with the gain in elevation, the whole space laid out for me. 

Campsite!

I decided to call it quits for the day a little after the 7 mile mark. It wasn’t marked on the AllTrails guide I was using, but I found a ridge line campsite just a bit after ascending Round Knob and thought it was the perfect place to watch the sun set and then rise the next morning. And so I ate my pasta-roni dinner while watching the orange and red bleed out of the sky through the trees. I could still see the same line of hills from the savannah to the west, and though I was shrouded in wilderness, I could see the lights of the town I saw earlier in the day come on as the blue of the night lapsed into deep navy. 

I decided to test my luck with rawdogging it in a hammock, no tarp. I brought a zero degree bag because I’m prone to getting cold, and this turned out to be a really epic setup imo. I was warm but I could poke my head out and see the branches reaching out above me.

I was really excited to try out my new backpack, a Six Moons Designs fusion 65, on an inaugural trip. First backlepacklin pack I’ve ever gotten for myself! I found the setup really accessible, with a lot of handy pockets and a big main space with a roll-top. It fit a bulky non-down zero degree bag really well with room to spare, so while it may be unnecessarily large for summer backpacking, I felt justified in getting a larger capacity pack for winter/early spring/fall shenanigans. 

Really blessed to experience the early days of spring on trail.