Mountain Laurels in the Sun (Early Summer Pt 2)

I left off on the last post talking about settling onto the banks of Cave Run Lake on the night of the 19th, having made it approximately... 38 miles?

The hills down to the lake absolutely wrecked me, so I had a late morning at Cave Run Lake, not leaving my campsite til after 10. I spent the early hours of the day bushwhacking to the water's edge, and the shore up to it had a long drop of stacks of shale to climb down. I collected some questionable water (times like these make me grateful that I was introduced to the sawyer water filter) and smacked on a traditional breakfast of 3 packets of cinnamon apple instant oats.

The view after bushwhacking down to the shore of Cave Run Lake.

I was headed towards Clear Creek Lake for the rest of the day, continuing to snake along the shore of Cave Run Lake before climbing up to the ridges of Pioneer Weapons Area. My topographic map had this area labeled as "cedar cliffs". This was another section where water was hard to come by, there was none between leaving Cave Run and getting to Clear Creek Lake. 

You can very vaguely spot Cave Run Lake in the distance from the ridges of pioneer weapons WMA. Another hot early summer day on trail.

I camped that night at Clear Creek Campground, a place I hope to return to with the people I love. Birds sang all night, the water I drew from the creek was cool and crisp. I saw a little black cat. The campground caretaker offered me coffee to start my day out with the next morning, which I happily accepted. 

The morning was bright and I saw a little cat standing right by the gate of the campground. Right at 8:30 the caretaker pulled up in his truck next to my site, pulled out a stoneware carafe of coffee from the back, and let me pour a mug for myself. Talking to him and havin some caffeine before my hike really set a positive tone for the day, where I had a huge task at hand--I planned to hike 18 miles from Clear Creek to Corner Ridge trailhead. 

Mountain laurels in the sun, and a blaze in Menifee County.

This is probably my favorite section of trail in this first portion of the trace that I hiked. You travel along a ridge on the border of Menifee and Bath county, and get to gaze out at miles of forested hills, lush with life and bright in the sun, with rocky balds and spots of clay that are reminiscent of RRG, down the road.

Looking out to KY 1274 (Old Beaver Rd), the first paved road since leaving the Clear Creek Lake area.

After hiking the scenic ridges after Clear Creek Lake, you follow a set of ATV trails up to Old Beaver Rd. Along the way I got passed by a 9-unit caravan of land cruisers, twice. I stood off to the side and waved hello, and then hello again to each one that passed, admiring all their bumper stickers as each land cruiser rumbled away. Once you hit the pavement it's a 3-mile roadwalk up to where Clifton Rd turns into rough ATV track.

Back in the woods for another mile and a half, trailing Clifton Creek, which had a number of little cascades. You travel upwards, legs burning as you leave the valley with the creek. There's a large rockshelter with a little waterfall near the end of this section.

The sunlight dissipated as it filtered through the canopy down to play on the surface of the creek. 

ATV road turns back into pavement, you turn right onto Kendrick Ridge Rd, and push on for another 5 mile roadwalk. It was about 4 or 5 when I got to this point, and the sun still blazed mercilessly overhead as I trod along the highway, cars passing me sporadically. It was a sunny afternoon outside of Frenchburg and every gentle breeze put a smile on my face. This was a taste of a different kind of scenery from the density of leaves and bark you encounter in the woods--to your left and right you see wide open fields and farmland. Eventually, you pass Tarr Ridge Union Church, where I stopped to make dinner and refill my supplies of drinking water from a garden hose. 

Soon after leaving the church, the trail turns onto (still paved) Corner Ridge road, but only for a little over a mile more. I passed horse farms, families enjoying the dregs of the day, and many barns on this stretch. And then I made it to Corner Ridge Trailhead: the entrance to Red River Gorge along the Sheltowee Trace. I was now 65 miles away from where I'd started 4 days ago with Martin. By 8 pm I had my tent set up, bear bag hung, and was settling in for a night in the gorge at a campsite I found near the trailhead.

The next morning I got up early and began the descent into the gorge. I envisioned, in the map of my mind, corner ridge as a long forested hallway or corridor that spits you out into the heart of the gorge. It winds along this ridge, slowly getting more and more rugged as you come down to meet Gladie Branch.

One of the first waterways I encountered Saturday morning in the gorge.

First sightings of rock faces in the gorge!

At the end of my hiking on this 6th day, last Saturday, I'd made it to the suspension bridge in the gorge, near jump rock. Approximately 78 miles for this trip, including the new reroutes along Cave Run Lake. I ended up going home this day because I realized I lost my SPOT gps beacon, and I didn't feel safe continuing on without it. 

I have the usual feelings of inadequacy about cutting this trip short, like I never really accomplish anything I ever set out to do. Or like I don't actually possess the will or drive to actually ever complete a thru-hike. Ultimately nothing matters tho, we're just flesh bags on a big rock, my standards for my self are too high anyways, whatever. Soon I'll be going back out there to sup more of the contours of the earth, as much as I can before my leave at work runs out.

Edit 9/18/21 

I am sitting outside willy T library on a Friday night in the middle of September. My classmates are chasing fountains of youth somewhere on the streets and in solo cups and I'm re-reading these posts, living through them, feeling tears welling as I'm trying to feel again the dappled sunlight in my mind's eye. 

I'm thinking about when I was 18, and I lived off Alumni, and I barely loved myself enough to pry my eyes open to the desperation and delusion of my living situation, and I hiked those lonely ridges straddling Menifee County for the first time. How I was carving out a shelter for my aching heart to rest. How I miss backpacking so much. How I should go to sleep. How bumbling with wild earth under my boots makes up nearly all of my dreams.

Good days, I've been on my empty mind shit.

Early Summer Part 1

I was on the Sheltowee beginning May 17th up until yesterday, May 22nd. I got about 78 miles in and made it from Morehead, the northern terminus, down to the suspension bridge in RRG.

My friend Martin and I started at the northern trailhead, where yellow primroses dotted the grass.

 

We crossed a few streams that seemed to signal that at least we'd find some reliable sources of water along the way. And then made our first climb up onto the ridgeline that we'd be following all day. 

Martin brought his binoculars and saw a bird he'd never spotted before--a scarlet tanager. Our afternoon was spent in a wooded landscape, paralleling a gravel road for a bit. Once in a while the canopy would open up a little to the side and you could spot the hills of Eastern Kentucky in the distance. That first day we made 10 miles and camped at Clark Park, where the resident dog could be heard genially sniffing outside our tent as we tried to catch some shut-eye.

The next day I got up a bit late, maybe 9, tired from our first day of roaming Kentucky's hills. We began our day's hike at maybe 10 in the morning, and climbed away from the holler of Dry Branch, up onto a ridge bare but for grass that was home to a cow pasture. We re-entered the woods and emerged at Holly Fork Rd, where we filled up our reserves of water just before the suspension bridge. I knew from experience that this was the last reliable source of water along the Sheltowee Trace until Eagle Lake on Morehead State University's campus, about 12 miles south. 

the pasture was full of fresh cowpats.

You follow a forest floor, full of tiny streams and small wildlife, (I saw an Eastern Box Turtle, mascot of the trail for the first time!) then climb back up to a forest road that takes you up to cross a bridge over I-64. After you cross over the interstate, it's a right onto a gravel road (Forest Road 977) that you will follow for about 8 or 9 miles, basically until you reach Morehead. Martin and I took a break a couple miles into 977 where he realized he had developed awful blisters, and at this point decided to cut his trip short and get our sweet pal Ethan to take him back home to Lexington.

The walk along 977 developed a monotony once I was alone, broken a couple times by views of Eastern Kentucky hills, lit by the hues of the setting sun.

I was cutting it close with daylight, and as I flew towards Morehead it grew darker and darker.

The hills near Morehead are challenging and by the time I was nearing Eagle Lake at MSU I felt like every step was an explosion of pain in my feet. I was dragging my carcass from the hills onto this college campus after dark, trying to find the least sus place to put my tent up for the night. 

The next day kicked my ass too. The dawn of the third day found me eating 4 mini vanilla moon pies for breakfast, washed down by a jumbo helping of chocolate nesquick. I made my way from Morehead's Allen IGA to Clearfield, on the outskirts of town, where I saw a little black cat scurry across a trailer park as recess was in full force at the elementary school across the road. The laughter and joy of the kids filled the bright early summer air, and I recalled the feeling of anticipation as the number of coming schooldays wasted away and the brightness of summer break called out to all of us. This year I finished my first full-time semester at college and just felt dazed. But the sounds of children playing fell away and I was walking further away from the city sprawl, deeper into a farming holler, an idyllic landscape dotted with cows, the earth tilled and fertile here, and after several miles on pavement from Eagle Lake the ST turned right, up and away into the hills once again. To Cave Run Lake I was bound. 

It was hot; the winding hills up to the lake made for a hard hike. On the left shadows fill the trail and on the right, high rock precipices (amburgy rocks?). This section of the trail is home to Limestone Knob, the highest point in Rowan County.

There was also no water to be found along the trail from Morehead to Cave Run Lake, about an 8-mile stretch. Last May when I hiked this section there was a natural spring near Limestone Knob right on the forest road, but when I came up to it this year it was dry.

When I got to the lake, I had to walk down the boat access road at High Bank picnic area to get to the shore, where I collected water amongst floating pieces of litter, infused by motor oil from the boats that sped around the lake. I sat on the shore for a while bleaching in the sun as I soaked my aching feet.

After a really late lunch at High Bank picnic area, I set off to cross the dam. On my left the lake was splayed out, framed by the hills I'd traversed earlier that day, and to my right was the spillway and a park, where families gathered against a background of trees and mountains.

    I turned into Stoney Cove Recreation Area, where more families were celebrating with potlucks and picnics, and headed towards the woods, turning onto the Caney Trail. Here the Sheltowee Trace has been rerouted to trail the shores of Cave Run Lake. This was also a shared-use trail with horses, and though horse season had just started a couple days before I hiked it, the terrain was destroyed and pocked by deep hoofprints in muddy areas. I hiked during a dry spell, but I could see this trail as being miserable in or right after the rain. 

    I was fighting the setting sun, racing towards the place I would make camp as the world grew dimmer and the light began leaking out of the woods. I settled in for the night along Cave Run Lake, and as the woods grew darker the soundscape of merriment and motors was replaced by the din of crickets chirping and whippoorwills calling into the night.

Morning along Cave Run Lake. Peep my Rakaia 2-person tent, super roomie when it's just me.