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4/00 Knobstone Trail, Indiana "And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoes loosed." Deut 25:10 Day 1
This weekend was to be another one of those thrown together, internet hikes that never work out. I reconsidered giving up on the group hiking and wanted to give it another try. The weekend only confirmed my earlier decision to not hike in a group and continue to revel in my solo trips. Southern Indiana is different from southern Ohio because it has more conifer trees and the geology is different. I'm used to the Appellations foothills and this is not like that. It's nice and quiet here though. I was worried as I drove into the area because it is a lot like the area around Cincinnati and the East Fork Lake Trail from hell. I was afraid with the temps in the 55-75 range that the ticks would be running a muck. As of 8 PM I haven't seen a single tick but did just get buzzed in the ear by a mozzy. After this weekend it will be hammock season again. Yahhooooo! There still may be a chance of meeting up with the Indiana group as the plan was to camp on top of Round Knob (1001') and watch the fireworks from Thunder over Louisville. I may meet them there. Who knows? It will be a great weekend no matter what. Day2 I decided to forget trying to meet the others at the New Chapel trail head and drove down to the southern terminus of the trail and hike north to Round Knob. At about 11PM last night every living night creature in the whole forest came out to sing to me. The tree fogs were in perfect harmony and the whippoorwills were mournfully calling all night and the coyotes even yipped it up a bit. I don't hear whippoorwills very often or very much when I do. It was nice. I got up at 7 AM and took my time getting packed up and on the trail as I only have about 7 miles to cover today. I can't hike in too far because I don't want a big hike on Sunday for the hike out. I hiked today barefooted. It was nice. My feet did get tender after about 5 miles and it felt good to stop for the day. The rest of the time I hiked in my sandals. They worked very well but I did get two little blisters on my smallest toes where the strap buckle thing rubbed. I put the light socks on at first and they still rubbed so later I put the light socks under some hiking socks and put duct tape over the blisters just in case. God, I haven't had a blister in years! The sandals with socks were a true winner and will be my new hiking shoes for the summer. I stopped for the day and camped on the knob just east of Round Knob and have given up on meeting up with the group. I'm in solo mode now. This was a beautiful knob. There were butterflies everywhere! Due to this fact and the fact that the knob has no name I have named it 'Butterfly Knob'. I lied around camp for the afternoon listening to the radio and the Palliated Wood pecks. I had Hamburger helper for dinner and went to bed. Day 3 I slept like crap last night. The ground was very hard and unforgiving. I wish Butterfly Knob had more leaves I could have stuffed under my ground cloth. I'm up early and on the trail in no time. the hike out took far less time than coming in as I have my sandals on instead of bare feet. I was glad to finally get to hike on this trail as I've wanted to do it for so long. I plan on doing this trail over the course of the summer section by section and look forward to doing the next section. Total Miles:14 |
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