Fairmount Falls in Jefferson Memorial Forest and the Hike Bike Pike Trail in Bernheim Forest.
You can find them both here or here

Checkout the possible new home for this blog and let me know what you think.
The Hiking Writer (new)

I’m going to stop posting my hiking blogs here, but I will link you to my other blogs at Kentuckiana Hiker’s Review and The Courier Journal. I’ve just posted a new Trail Shorts blog for July, so check it out here:

Trail Shorts July 2009

(I’ll continue posting my view on news, pop-culture and also posting some of my fiction here)

I’m the new Hiking Blogger for the Louisville Courier Journal’s Outdoors Section of their website.

http://www.courier-journal.com/kentucky-outdoors

I lost my internet connection thanks to some industrious landscapers and a backhoe. But it is back now thankfully and I also went to the Smokies for my first real hike on the Appalachian Trail this weekendd from Newfound Gap to Charlies Bunion. I’ve got loads of pictures to deal with so look for them later this week. I’ll also be posting a new volume of Trail Shorts this week as well.

Good lord the AT is beautiful.

Taylorsville has a special place in my heart. My father was born and raised there, and a good part of my youth was spent traveling to Taylorsville on Saturdays or Sundays to visit any number of kinfolk in the area.

I watched my Grand-Pop fish on the Salt River long before they were even thinking about a dam for the lake. I learned to fish at my cousin’s farm which now has the bypass running directly through what used to be their land. Even the ride to Taylorsville has some great memories, especially on the older sections of Taylorsville Rd. The trees used to grow so close together my sisters and I called it a “ride through the caves”.

Good times and treasured memories.

I’ve fished Taylorsville Lake and the tail waters many times, but I’ve never gone hiking in the State Park. When the cool weather hit this week, I figured I should change that.

When I hike a new park or any new trail for that matter, I like to check out the Internet to see if there is a trail map online. Barring an online map, I’ll head to park welcome center or ranger station to pick up a map.

Taylorsville Lake State Park (TLSP) is part of the Kentucky State Parks system and as such, shares a few online tools for maps with the rest of the state. As of July 1^st, I’ve yet to get these tools working properly with Firefox or Internet Explorer and I’m not sure it it’s a bug with the browser, the Kentucky.gov servers or the browser plugin being utilized to deliver the maps.

So even BEFORE I left the house, I was a little frustrated. But without worry, I drove the 45 minutes or so to TLSP and went directly to the welcome center. Asking the one employee present if they had any trail maps available, I was given a photocopy of the park’s trail map.

Bee Balm

Thinking all was fine, I went to the parking lot and sat in the car for a few minutes letting my eyes adjust to the light and the very tiny print on the photocopy page, deciding where I would start my day’s adventures.

To my chagrin, all of the trails on the map were marked for use by hikers, bikers and horses with one exception, a short half mile wildlife viewing loop trail, which was marked as hikers only. The wildlife viewing loop sounded like a good warm up to start with, so off I went to the trailhead.

Upon arrival, I suited up, checked my gear, applied some deet for tick protection and headed out. It was partly cloudy, barely above 70 degrees and it looked like it was going to be a great day. It took about 30 yards along the trail before I started to change that opinion. After immediately ducking under several overhanging bushes, the trail split and there wasn’t any direction anywhere for which way I was supposed to go. After a few minutes, I spotted a more worn area of the trail ahead and proceeded through about 10 yards of brush before continuing along the loop.

I’m not a novice hiker, nor would I call myself an expert. I’ve never spent weeks at a time humping it with a backpack and tent, but I’m a pretty seasoned day hiker. That being said, there are certain things on trails that I am always looking for that are a comfort.

Namely: trail markers.

Taylorsville Lake State Park has ZERO trail markers. They have trailhead markers and trail junction markers (some of which are confusing or worse, misnamed) but all along the trails, not a single triangle, square or any other polygon of any color is present. And it is a little disconcerting. Your best bet if you’re lost in TLSP is to look for horse hoof prints to find the real trail. Several times during my hiking, I followed what looked like trail, but eventually disappeared into vegetation. I backtracked each time and followed the more beaten of two tracks to stay on trail.

There is no “Salt River” trail on the map

Trail but no markers

To complicate things, the names of trails on the map I was given didn’t always match up to the trailhead markers or names posted to trees at junctions. I attempted the Lake Vista Trail according to the map, but the same trail was marked the Lake Loop, the Salt River Trail and no where along the trail was the name “Lake Vista” posted.

And what I thought was a loop trail, dead-ended at a picnic table and also at the end of an access road. There was no going forward, so I started back along the access road, which showed a trailhead for the “Lake Loop” trail, which does not exist on the map.

For a while, I felt like Moses in the Sinai and wasn’t sure if I would have to retrace all my steps just to return to the parking lot.

Until these problems are addressed, I won’t be heading back to Taylorsville Lake State Park to hike anytime soon, unless I suddenly develop a severe streak of masochism.

(Trail conditions aren’t bad, but this is “horse friendly” park, so many trails are beaten up badly from horse traffic. Your best bet would be to pick one of several shorter trails, but I wouldn’t recommend TLSP for hikers or bikers. TLSP is notorious for ticks, but in the approximately 4 miles I hiked, I picked ONE tick off of my socks.)

Deer are plentiful in the park

Praying Mantis

Check out the rest of the photos from my hike in Taylorsville Lake State Park.

It looks like I’m going to be the “hiking blogger” for the Louisville Courier Journal’s Outdoors section of the newspaper. I’ll let you know when it is official, but I already blog there in the Reader Blogs.

The same content can be found here, but I’ll probably get more readers there. I’ll keep you posted.

As always, the complete photo albums from my hikes will be kept here.

I’d say Farrah effected me more. I always liked the Wierd Al parodies of Jackson’s music as opposed to the actual music.   Sure, Jackson was a genius, but he ruined good pop music for a decade in my opinion. He wasn’t a pop artist.

Besides, the poster will always be in my dreams.

UPDATE: RE Michael

Maybe it is my problem in my Catholic school white bread suburban upbringing, but Michael Jackson never did much for me. Thriller was remarkable, but like his dance moves, it seemed to me anyway that he was sort of a one trick pony.

I know that is harsh this close to his untimely passing, but so be it. He was incredibly influential no one can deny, but I don’t think of him as the “king of pop”, but more as the “king of hype”, at least musically.

I enjoyed Weird Al Yankovich’s parodies of his music more than the originals.

I like rock, and I like good pop, I just don’t think Michael ever really fit in either category.

Scott’s Gap Loop, Jefferson Memorial Forest

I’ve gotten caught in stormy weather on trails several times. Almost every time it has happened, I didn’t really plan for a sudden thunderstorm, but I was always prepared with a plastic poncho in my pack, so I was never worried.

On June 15^th, the weather called for rain all afternoon, so I was prepared for a wet hike from the outset. I had not hiked the 3 mile Scott’s Gap Loop trail for a couple of months and a rainy afternoon seemed like a perfect time to check it out.

I was greeted with drizzly rain at the trailhead and was surprised to find the trail lush with Summer-time plants almost overgrowing the trail in spots. Jewelweed is the predominant flower in bloom right now, including both the orange and pale varieties. Fence lizards greeted me along the first hill, scurrying across the downed tree trunks and limbs.

Pale Jewelweed

As soon as I reached the top of the first climb on the trail (counterclockwise from the trail loop fork) the sky darkened and I was greeted at the bald overlook with a rumble of thunder.

Not a good sign.

Undiscouraged, I continued on for about a mile, passing the shortcut turnoff and then hiking out along the ridge-line. Just before the trail descends into a creek valley, the canopy thins out and it was at this point that the heavens opened the flood gates. On top of the ridge, the clouds rolled in, the thunder rumbled and I was drenched to the bone within a minute.

Standing in the lee of a hickory tree, I debated my options. After a few more rumbles of thunder, I realized that standing under a tree probably wasn’t my best strategy either. Forward, I still had several steep hills, all of which would be muddy and running with water. Backward, I only had 2 small hills until I returned to the shortcut on the loop, and the tree canopy was much thicker in that direction, which would save me a bit from the heavy rain. In short order, I decided to head back to the shortcut and walk out from there.

On my return, I experienced another first for me in Jefferson Forest. The clouds in this storm were so low, that I actually got fogged in hiking the ridge back to the shortcut. Just before getting off the trail, the rain tapered off to just a drizzle, but as slippery as my exit was, I knew I had made the right decision to cut my hike short. As a general rule of thumb, don’t hike when there is lightning if you can avoid it.

Low Clouds Along the Ridge

Scott’s Gap, The Wrong Way

After my exciting little rain out last week, I returned to Scott’s Gap on a steamy Sunday afternoon and for whatever reason, I decided to hike the loop clockwise for the very first time. I’ve been hiking this trail regularly since 1995, and for whatever reason, I’ve always hiked it counterclockwise.

This hike proved to me that you should never underestimate heat (88 degrees) with humidity ( about 80%) no matter how long a trail might be. I took only 2 pint sized water bottles with me and it turned out to be not enough. Before I was finished, I was lead footed and light headed over the last half mile or so.

I had to face facts: I got cocky.

I’ve hiked several 10+ mile trails this season, but this was the first real Ohio Valley Summer-time weather I’d experienced since last year. Couple that with the fact that I didn’t think a little 3 mile trail could be dangerous and I ended up feeling like a fool.

In addition to being poorly equipped (not enough water) and poorly prepared (I drank coffee instead of water in the morning), the clockwise version of Scott’s Gap loop puts a very long and fairly steep hill going up at about the 2 mile mark. Having never hiked the trail in this direction, I’d forgotten about this hill completely, because it was always the descent into my favorite section rather than the hike out.

Much like my rain out hike, I left the trail soaked to the bone, but this time from perspiration rather than precipitation.

Lesson learned? Never underestimate the heat+humidity equation and prepare before you hike. Take more water than you need, regardless of how long your hike might be, especially in the heat.

Smooth Phlox 

You can view the other pictures from these hikes in the photo album Rain Out.

Mother Instinct

It was rather startling.

I was just strolling along the trail, enjoying the greenery when to my left there was an explosion of feathers and noise.

After flinching, I watched a small brownish bird, no bigger than a child’s fist, fly directly down the trail in front of me, and land, all the while screeching and squawking. After it landed, it flopped about helplessly, continuing its alarming cries. At first, I thought it was injured, but as I approached, it gathered itself and continuing its din, flew another twenty feet or so forward. As it landed, it did an encore performance of “bird with a broken wing”.

It was quite something, but I realized it was all an act.

I turned back toward the origin of the feathered eruption and after looking closely at a fern covered bank, I found the nest. 4 spotted eggs lay snuggled inside. It was a perfect example of the mother protection instinct I’ve seen countless times on nature programs, but this time it was a live performance, for an audience of one.

Concealed nest and eggs

Short Cut

I got out early a few weeks ago on a rainy morning to revisit the Two Lakes Loop Trail in Hoosier National Forest (HNF). My intention was to check out the trail that cuts the 16 mile loop trail neatly in half. The rain was heavy and the trail was muddy, but it was a great day for an 8 mile hike around Lake Celina. The short cut makes an all day hike turn into a relatively easy 3.5 to 4 hour hike that includes great lakeside scenery along with beautiful plants and animals.

I’m still maintaining that this is my favorite trail in HNF, and my short cut try out did nothing to convince me otherwise.

Fishermen on Lake Celina

Wild Rose on the Cut Off

Goose feather in the rain

If you’d like to see all of the photos from this hike, check them out in the photo album 2 Lakes Loop Revisited

2009 Firsts

It’s almost the halfway point of 2009, so I thought it would be an excellent time to look back at some the things I’ve spotted while hiking the last 6 months. It’s been a great year of firsts for me, in both the animal and plant categories.

For the fauna category, I’ve spotted the following this year for the very first time in Kentuckiana:

• Mourning Cloak butterfly

• Red Spotted Newt

• Bald Eagle

• Scarlet Tanager

• Collared Lizard (Kansas)

• Horny Toad (Kansas)

• Mating tortoises

• Sara Orange Tip butterfly

Unfortunately, I’ve still not succeeded in getting good pictures of my photographic Moby Dick, the pileated woodpecker.

In the flora category, I’ve spotted and finally named a few firsts as well including:

• Celandine Poppy

• Red and White Trillium

• Blue Eyed Mary

• Crested Dwarf Iris

• Yellow Lady’s Slipper

• Squirrel Corn

• Dutchman’s Breeches

• Smooth Solomon’s Seal

The biggest trophy plant off the year has to be the Yellow Lady’s Slipper I spotted on the Two Lakes Loop trail in Hoosier National Forest. Squirrel Corn, Dutchman’s Breeches and a multitude of Trillium all over Kentuckiana were also big surprises as well as delightful finds.

Yellow Lady’s Slipper