My Backpacking Trip - Day 5

I was hoping I would get a chance to sleep in this morning since I was staying put for the remainder of my trip but a group of wild turkeys had other plans. I was (rudely) awakened by about a dozen turkeys clucking and gobbling and making this weird popping noise about 50 yards from my tent. I wanted to try to get some pictures of them but by the time I could get dressed in my tiny tent and then crawl outside they were gone.


Bluffs Backcountry Campsite Mammoth Cave National Park



I cooked breakfast and decided I would hike back to the car to unplug the cell phone charger so I would be able to drive home when my trip was over. I packed up some things I decided I no longer needed and hiked to the car. It was a little over three miles from the Bluffs campsite to the trailhead where I parked, so I had a nice six mile hike ahead of me. At the trailhead I sat at a picnic table, ate beef jerky for lunch, and called my kids. The cell phone signal was very weak at the trailhead and I couldn't get reception in the woods.


Some of the many hiking trails in the Mammoth Cave National Park


I hiked back to the campsite after my lunch, and since it was a warm day I decided to shower in the waterfall at my campsite. The water was absolutely freezing cold, like ice. I couldn't stand under the water for long because it was so cold, but it felt great to get clean. I cleaned my dirty laundry under the waterfall as well, spreading dirty clothes over the rocks that the water was beating onto where it fell.


My Own Private Waterfall


I spent the rest of the afternoon scouting around the campsite and dragging back any wood I could find for my campfire. After about an hour it was starting to get dark and I had an impressive pile of wood so I lit the fire. I sat roasting marshmallows and listening to music until after dark. Just after the sun went down the coyotes in the park became active.


Roasting Marshmallows



Being alone in the dark and hearing coyotes howling all around you is quite an experience for a city boy like me. I researched coyotes before I left for the trip and so I knew they were no threat to me; they eat mice and other small rodents, but it was still a little unnerving to hear so many coyotes all around me. Some were very close, at the top of the bluff above me and on the bluff next to mine, down the hill in front of me and up the next hill. Others were far off so they could barely be heard. At times I could hear a bunch of them snarling and growling and barking together, with the noises starting off quitely and working into a frenzy. I think they were hunting as a pack and would make lots of noise when they were making a kill. It could have been that the males were competing for females since it was early spring. At any rate, I had a good time sitting and listening to all the howling and snarling and being a little scared but knowing I had nothing to worry ab!
out.

The coyotes continued making noise long into the night, longer than I stayed awake. I retreated to my tent around 10pm and fell asleep to the sounds of growling, barking, snarling coyotes all around me.

My Backpacking Trip - Day 4

I woke up early on day 4, my internal alarm clock waking me up well before dawn. I had slept peacefully all night for the first time and I woke up feeling refreshed. I was outside for the first bit of morning light and the sunrise was a beautiful show to watch that morning.


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...

My Backpacking Trip, Day -1

Friday March 21, 2008 Day -1

On Friday I got up at 4 am, finished loading the car, woke up the kids, and hit the road. We were westward bound by 6am. It was an uneventful trip to Indiana and we arrived in Mitchell, IN around 7pm. I exchanged the kids at the McDonalds at the intersection of Indiana routes 37 and 60, then took 60 back to Scottsburg and onto I-65. At this point I still had no idea where I was going to drive to so I could start my trip. I decided to drive and think it over. I had seen a Dicks Sporting Goods on I-65 as soon as you crossed into Indiana from Kentucky and I needed a few last-minute items so I decided to drive down there, get the stuff, and decide where to go.

When I got off the highway I saw a Bass Pro Shop near the Dicks. Perfect. They have comparable prices and a much larger selection than Dicks. I went into the Bass Pro Shop and found the camping section. I bought some freeze-dried spaghettiand Pad Thai meals and I got a Lexan drinking cup. I also got some jerky that I thought would make a good lunch to eat on the go.

Leaving the Bass Pro Shop I found a Wal Mart so I stopped there. I got some food items like a box of Power Bars, a can of Hormel Chili and some Beanie Weenies. I went to the sporting goods section and bought an inflatable memory foam pillow, a water resistant stuff sack, a pair of rain pants, and a few other little things. I noticed hand warmerson sale and I bought several packs of the hand, foot, and body warmers. I went by the footwear section and couldn't find any hiking boots my size but I found a pair that were on clearance that were half a size too big. I figured that with an extra pair of socks on they would be fine. Boy was I wrong about that.

I paid for the stuff then I went back to my car and opened a Kentucky road map. I added the distances to each of the four locations and decided I had enough gas and time to make it to the Big South Fork in Kentucky, but Tennessee might be pushing it too far. I decided on the Big South Fork in Stearns, Kentucky. Earlier that morning I had printed the weather forecasts for Big South Fork and Mammoth Cave and the Big South Fork had the favorable forecast. It would be in the 60's during the day and 40's each night in the Big South Fork. Mammoth Cave was 50's/30's and had some snow forecast.

Somewhere around 10:15 pm I pulled out of the Wal Mart parking lot and drove into Louisville on I-65, then took I-64 East toward the Big South Fork. I got to I-75 in Lexington and took I-75 south. By this time I was getting very tired. I made it somewhere near Berea and finally saw a sign for a rest stop. It was the first rest stop since I got onto I-75 and I was pretty desperate to find one at this point. I got to the rest area and saw that it was more of a cultural center that sold local folk art to tourists. It closed at 8pm and it was somewhere around 2am by now. There was a truck in the parking lot with a large camper hitched to it and the occupants were asleep, so I parked my car and decided to sleep there. I broke out the inflatable pillow I bought at Wal Mart and used it with a few fleece blankets I had in the back for the kids. I took off my shoes and socks, put the seat all the way back, and fell asleep in no time.

My Backpacking Trip

I have had a very busy week and haven't been able to update my blog. In my last entry I was trying to figure out where I would go on my week long backpacking trip in Kentucky. I ended up spending six nights and seven days on the trail.

I spent three nights at the Big South Fork National Recreational Area and National River near Stearns, Kentucky. Then I hiked back to my car and drove to Mammoth Cave National Park in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky for a three night hiking and camping trip.

I took a notebook with me and kept a journal of my trip. In the near future I'll add entries for each day of the trip. It was definitely a trip I will never forget. In the mean time, here are some teaser photos from the trip. I'll explain them in the upcoming entries.