Sunrise on the Big South Fork
Morning Mist on the Big South Fork River
I had packed most of my stuff last night so I broke camp quickly and headed toward the Yamacraw trailhead and my car. The walk back was fairly uneventful. I ran into two older men, late 50's or even early 60's, who had packs and walking sticks. They said they were coming from farther south and it got too cold for them so they had a friend pick them up and drop them off again at Yamacraw and they lost two days of their trip. They said the weather was going to be much warmer and they wanted to make the Catawba overlook today, which was a good 8-10 miles behind me.
I made it back to my car (it wasn't broken into!) and got everything loaded in it and headed for the Big South Fork visitor center in Stearns. When I got there the same ranger was on duty who gave me my backcountry camping permit when I left. I let her know I was back from my trip and I asked her about the clawed tree I had seen and asked her if it could have been a raccoon looking for grubs in the dead wood. She took one look at the picture I had taken on my camera's LCD screen and said "Nope, you found yourself a male black bear" with her Kentucky twang. We talked another 10 minutes or so about wildlife in the area and then I left and headed to Mammoth Cave National Park.
I took a detour and swung by the Cumberland Falls state park, which is called the "Niagra Falls of the South". Cumberland Falls is a massive, wide waterfall that casts a "moonbow" during a full moon. The area around the park looked nice. There is no backcountry camping at Cumberland Falls even though a part of the Sheltowee Trace runs through the park.
The drive to Mammoth Cave National Park was much longer than I thought and I arrived to the visitor center there about 20 minutes before it closed. The ranger here spoke slowly but intelligently and had a good but dry sense of humor. He very much reminded me of Steven Wright. He surprised me when he was talking about packing in fresh water and he said "Now I know you drove all the way from the Harford Road exit of the Beltway to get here and that water weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon and that it is much easier to boil water than it is to pack it in, but as you can see there are a lot of farm fields around here and a lot of the water is agricultural runoff and boiling will not remove chemicals and fertilizers and manure and if you want to make it back to the Baltimore Beltway so you can take that Harford Road exit and go back home to Parkville I highly recommend that you pack in water." He saw my driver's license, but this ranger had a thick Kentucky accent. How did he know which exit from the beltway I would take to get to my house? Later on in his ramblings the Ranger said something to the effect of "and I know I am just a park ranger with a cousin who lives on Bel Air Avenue in Overlea but...". So that was it, he has a cousin who lives close to me.
At Mammoth Cave National Park, backcountry camping is allowed at twelve designated back country campsites. The campsites are reserved on a first come, first serve basis. I was fortunate that I was able to reserve the Bluffs, which seems to be the most popular site and the one that is most recommended on all the internet sites I read about Mammoth Cave National Park.
I left the Visitor Center and stopped in the camp store. I bought a bag of marshmallows and two cans of Beanie Weenies. I would be staying put at this campsite, no more backpacking once I got there, so I decided I would relax and enjoy it.
I had to take a small ferry across the Greene river to get to the Good Spring Trailhead. The ferry was interesting. It held three cars and was guided by steel cables strung across the river. Once on the other side it was about a ten minute drive to the Trailhead parking lot.
I got out of the car, threw on my pack, and took off. I had a 3 mile hike in front of me and the sun was very low in the sky. I was worried that I would be stuck on the trail in the dark. I knew the trail to the Bluffs was steep and treacherous and I wanted no part of it in the dark with 70 pounds on my back. I hurried on, walking at a very fast pace, sweating profusely. The trails here were double tracks, nothing at all like the Sheltowee Trace, and that made the going easier.
The Buffalo Trail at Mammoth Cave National Park
The Buffalo Trail at Mammoth Cave National Park
I made it to the Bluffs trail with about 30 minutes of sunlight remaining. The trail was very steep and rocky and I slid several times but luckily my walking sticks caught my fall each time. The trail leveled out and there were several rock houses, two of them with waterfalls. About a quarter mile past the waterfalls I made it to the campsite.
The campsite had a lantern post, a steel fire ring, and a tent pad. The tent pad was not level, and it was filled with very course sand and lots of gravel. I got the tent set up and found a fairly level rock to set up my stove on. I cooked the cans of Beanie Weenies for dinner and then crawled into my tent and went to sleep. It was dark and I was very tired after my double time march to the camp site. The tent pad was sloped so the my feet were lower than my head and I kept suddenly sliding feet forward during the night. I didn't sleep well.
My tent at teh Bluffs campsite in Mammoth Cave National Park
As I was dozing off I realized I left my cell phone charger plugged into the cigarette lighter of my car. There was a red light that lit when it was plugged in. I knew the light hardly drained any power but I was going to be here for three nights. Would the light drain my battery in 3 days? I would have to go back and unplug it tomorrow...
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