My hiking buddy, Lisa, and I pushed to maintain our pace with this trip, week 8 in a row of hiking! This one was a challenge and definitely the most "remote" we've done this year. But, bonus, we got a bunch of really awesome people to go along with us. It was a big group, but also some big miles! |
- Rockcastle Narrows East Trail (#401) - a loop with Van Hook Falls!
- Sheltowee Trace Trail (#100) - the Kentucky long trail, or at least, a small section of it... miles 88.30 to 89.43 northbound following The "Thru-Hiker's Manual" for the Sheltowee Trace by Scot "Taba" Ward. Section #25.
- 7 mile loop!
Yes, I knew it was going to be a challenge when our driving directions consisted of following Forest Roads that were either numbered or named and Goggle Maps couldn't follow either. But that's ok. That's why it's called an adventure!
All good plans come from a wonderful book. In this case, it's Day and Overnight Hikes: Kentucky's Sheltowee Trace by Johnny Molloy. It's been great so far with constructing ideas for how to go about hiking the Sheltowee Trace. I like that it splits the Trace apart into small bites, and focuses on the best bits. The anal-retentive part of me wants to see more links to the section numbers provided by the Forest Service for the Trace, so I know exactly which ones we've marked off the list.
We parked off KY 119 and walked down past the gate to the trail head. It's a beautiful tree-lined trail, following down Yuel Branch to Van Hook Branch creeks. On the way down to Van Hook Falls, we ran across a couple of small falls and lots of rock shelters. The days was amazing, though in places the trail was muddy and wet. But that's ok! It still made for a nice hike! |
The downhill to Van Hook Falls was easy enough. Let me tell you, the falls itself was beautiful! We had it all alone too. No one to disrupt the view but each other. Don't worry, we did too. There was a lot of picture taking and an adventurous Lisa leaned her head back into the falls to get her head wet. Said it was super cold! That's not for me though, I preferred to stand back and take some pictures. Faruk took advantage and posed while I was trying to take some nice distance shots of the waterfall. Ruin the picture? I'm not sure. Right now, it's making me laugh.
The trail follows Lake Cumberland up to The Narrows, where the Rockcastle River narrows, creating some beautiful rapids. The Narrows provide Class III rapids open to kayaking. Don't worry, we didn't do any kayaking, but we did go down and stick our tired feet in the cold water. Leave it to fearless Lisa to go all in with both feet, then slack around and have a nap.
Ah, what to do!
"Marco!"
"Polo!"
"Blaze!"
Smash, smash, smash. "Crap!"
Yup. Old fashioned, but highly effective tracking. Ben was bounding forward with the rest of the group, while I'm handing back a bit to make sure Lisa could find her way back to us. It was a joy.
The hike back to the car was uphill. It didn't feel long, it was just uphill. I don't do uphill well. Give me flatland or give me death. That's ok, my buddy Ben likes to stop and rest a bunch too.