MUD

Well....I think I'm going to write today's post in honor of a friend of mine that has spent the last year at the South Pole. His name is Jeff Derosa, from Bath, Maine and for these last 12 months has seen basically nothing but the white of ice and snow, except for a couple of months during which everything was all dark because the sun made a big exit and decided not to come back up.

Today he got on a big ol' airplane and is on his way back toward the sun where things are a little warmer and much more colorful. He'll get back home in Maine just in time for a New England winter where things have been just a little bit crazy. At the Mt. Washington Weather Observatory where he used to work they had a wind gust of 158 mph......it was enough to rock the whole building, which is made out of 10-inch concrete. They've also had 10-foot drifts of snow up there too, making things as white as where he came from.

Now I'm sure Jeff can relate to to the pictures I'm showing you today. He played football himself for the University of Southern Maine. He's 6-4 and weighed about 240. I say it in past tense because he's just a little bit thinner from his experience down at the pole. I expect he himself has had the good ol' barnyard look like you're seeing in the picture at left. It usually takes a few minutes for a football player to get his body used to this but after a while they begin to love it. I covered a game a couple of weeks before this one where a team played in a driving rain and by the end of the game the guys were doing belly slides in the puddles surrounding the field. The mud gets in your helmet, in your hair, in your eyes and sometimes into a few other orifices. I must admit I don't know the taste of it but I'm sure these will tell you it's just a bit gritty. At least they're getting their minerals. This particular game was between North Harrison High School out of Ramsey, Indiana and Greensburg High School to the southeast of Indianapolis. It had rained all day and at the beginning of the game it wasn't that bad. But as the game progressed the middle of the field turned into a nice thick soup, but not one your grandmother would have made.

The outpost where Jeff has been was at a spot of an altitude, I believe, of over 9,000 feet. The funny thing is that about 8,000 feet of that was ice below him. I've always wondered about what kind of creatures might be buried in the ice that deep. There could be things the likes of which nobody would ever dream of. It's about like not knowing what might be in the mud that you're getting into every hole on your head. A lot of little wriggly creatures crawl around in that stuff too. We're usually too busy thinking about the other things at hand. Of course when it comes to mud I doubt that we would NOT want to think about what might be in there. But anyway my good friend Jeff should now be back on the much greener lands of New Zealand about now. I expect he's probably trying to locate the biggest REAL steak he can get his hands on and guzzling down a FRESH beer. The good thing is now he doesn't have to feel the ice and snow between his toes. He can wiggle those little guys in the mud. By the way.......he'll have a complete dish of lasagna waiting for him here. Garfield is no contest when it comes to that.

A Change of Seasons

You could feel it coming in the air back in September when I was on my hike down on the North-South Trail at the Land Between the Lakes in western Kentucky. There was a bit of chill in the air and it just felt different. The seasons were getting ready to make a drastic change from summer to fall.
This year has been similar to last year in that the color across southern Indiana has not had that brilliance like it has seen in years past. Two years ago the woods literally exploded with bright colors all over. I don't know the reason for the lack of brilliance these last two years. Maybe it was too dry or maybe it was too wet. I'd just rather think that maybe Mother Nature simply had a case of artist's block like we seem to get from time to time. It's just one of those things that happens and you can't do anything about but just wait for it to pass and then go on.

So what I like to do when Mother Nature has one of those days is look for details. While you might see all of those brilliant yellows, oranges, and reds massed along a creek or river bank, sometimes it's the little things that have the look of something much bigger. I found this small weathered maple leaf and it just kind of stood out against the bark of a fallen tree that was spotted with the green of some new moss. This one little leaf smaller than the palm of my hand seemed to let you know that fall had definitely arrived. Though as small as it was the leaf told a very big story.

Next to the log was a small stream. This stream is on a 12-mile loop trail about 20 minutes from where I live and is one of my favorite places. It has the look of a stream you might see in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and this particular spot makes a great place for a snack or lunch with plenty of big rocks to sit and take a load off. It was in this stream I once again found one of those little things with these leaves that had fallen in the water. It was evident that some of the leaves from the maples, oaks, and hickory trees had just fallen but there were others that you could tell had been there for some time, the color completely washed away by the water. The cooler air that had set in had also chilled the water as well and if you had tired feet from walking I can tell you for a fact it made them feel much better. The picture shows, though, that Mother Nature has different ways of painting a picture for us.
Before long it will be winter and we may or may not get a lot of snow. Personally I'm hoping for a couple of good snows because I want to come back to this creek and see a completely different picture. If I do I'll make that you see it too.

The LBL Hike
Day Five

With the heavy rain during the night the nearby creek came up in a hurry, about 10 inches in two hours. We had a few drips in the shelter but nothing of any consequence. I turned on my weather radio and it talked of heavy weather in the afternoon with possible severe storms, including big hail and even tornadoes. We made the decision to start for the next shelter only 7 miles away. About 200 yards from the main trail we heard a large tree fall. It was close and it was loud. That told me something right there and I waited for Steve and his dad to catch up. I told them as much as I wanted to finish I felt like we should head back toward the main road and catch a ride to the truck. With what was coming there was too much of a danger of getting caught between two flooded streams or worse, having a tree land on us or getting hit by lightning. I had been in that situation before and it wasn't fun at all. We made the call to go back and found The Trace road. Once there we walked for more than a mile before a pickup truck stopped to give us a ride back to the north station nine miles away. This was a safety and common sense decision of staying in one piece. A few minutes later and we were back at the station.

But the story doesn't end here. The van Steve and his dad drove down broke a fan belt. They called a tow truck to come get it and it was taken to a nearby shop to get fixed. The sky cleared off and it got fairly warm. We probably could have made it to the next shelter with no problems but the skies were beginning to look a little unfriendly too. After a couple of hours the van was fixed and we were ready to go again. I did stop long enough at one of the fields to get some pictures of some of the buffalo that are kept at LBL. I really wanted to get a picture of an elk but that wouldn't happen today. I'd have to do that when we came back to finish the last 14 miles. I had to finish that before I got my t-shirt from there so I knew I would see the elk later.

Then things began to get really crazy with the weather. Towers started going up to the south and west. The conditions were about the made a drastic change as the storms started exploding. Tornado watches had already been issued. We reached I-24 and a large cell could be seen to the northwest. It had the structure of a large supercell and one that meant trouble. Rain began to pelt us as got on the Western Kentucky Parkway. When we got to the Pennyrile Parkway it got worse. A large supercell was moving from east to west a few miles ahead with continuous cloud to ground lightning. As we got closer strong rotation could be seen in the storm. The cell was becoming tornadic right in front of our eyes. When we were about a mile away I pulled to the side of the road to let it cross and Steve did the same. I looked for a funnel but could seen none and suspected it was surrounded by the rain. I grabbed for camera lenses and memory cards for my camera all the while. Still I never saw the funnel so we kept going. When we reached the place it had crossed there were lots of leaves on the highway but no real damage. Still the radio blared of warnings all over the area we were in.

We reached the Audobon Parkway and was going east and met up with the cell again. Warnings were out for the Owensboro area for the cell and this time I managed a few shots of the back side of the storm through my windshield. As we drove the by-pass around Owensboro I looked to the west and saw twin wall clouds over the city. One cloud broke up then another formed just north. the sky had become more than just violent with turbulence in the air and the lightning punching holes in the sky. To the north in Indiana the rain picked up to more light buckets falling on us. We decided to go ahead north to the interstate instead of following the river and putting ourselves in the path of the tornadic cell that had brought the wall clouds with it. On our path the rain became heavier and at Gentryville we had to pull for about 20 minutes because visibility had gone zero. Finally we were moving again but slowly, having to creep through runoffs in some place deeper than I was comfortable with. Even on the interstate we could only travel between 30 and 45 mph because of the rain and when we got passed by cars the spray made seeing impossible, forcing me to the right at least twice. That made me nervous as well with the runoff ditch on the side of the road almost to the point of over flowing. Finally we made it back to Crawford County where roads there were also flooded. At Carefree Steve went south and I went north. We both had to creep through deep water but we finally made it home. One thing is for certain. It was an adventure we all wouldn't forget. And we still have to go back. We've got those t-shirts to get.

The LBL Hike
Day Four

Got up to clear skies once again and I was wondering how long it would last. We heard another elk bugle right at daybreak a little more to the northeast so that made me forget about the weather. We refilled out water bottles then crossed the hill back to the trail. This would be the day we would reach Kentucky Lake and it was something I was looking forward to, some much different views. There turned out to be a lot more ups and downs on this part of the trail, something I really didn't expect. Some of them were pretty steep too and Steve even compared one hill to the Appalachian Trail. The right foot was taking a beating as a hot spot developed on the big toe. I got Dr. Steve to fix that for me and we continued on. We finally made it to the lake and the views were pretty awesome. Some areas gave us a lot of level walking and we made some pretty good time there.
Then we started seeing more critters and this time I did have my camera out. The first was right after I had refilled my bottles right out of the lake (yep the water was good too). Steve and his dad were checking something out by the trail when I looked to the left. All coiled up was this black racer snake that looked like he didn't like us being there. My first thought was why he didn't slide off away from us. He just laid there in this coil with us pretty much standing over him. The only thing we could figure out was it hadn't been too long since he had eaten. After getting home and looking at the pictures of him it was easy to see. About 12-14 inches behind his head was two humps in his belly. I don't know what he had caught but he was definitely digesting something. He stayed coiled up the entire time until we left him alone. Something else odd was this was the only snake we entire the entire hike. We had been warned a few miles back by two workers about rattlesnakes but never saw a one. I guess they didn't want their picture taken either.
A little later I came up on three racoons on top of a hill. One ran off to the right but the two others went scurrying up a nearby white oak tree. They climbed up about 20 feet then peeked around the side of the tree to see what had given them such a start. (This picture isn't very good but at least you can get an idea as to how curious they were.) After a while they kept on climbing until they were high enough to hide in the leaves. We were able to watch them for almost half an hour before losing sight of them in the treetop. Then the fun started as we began to look for the next shelter. We came to a tee in the road and saw that the sign had been knocked down. To the right was a yellow blaze on a tree and that just didn't seem right. We didn't see any side trail like what was supposed to be there. Steve went to the left and found the main trail blaze. We sat and discussed the situation for a few minutes and looked at the map. I suggested we go on to Duncan Lake a couple of miles ahead and if need be just set up the tents. The map, however, said the shelter wasn't that far away, only about a mile, but we would have to do some looking for it. Steve made the call to go ahead and look for the shelter and this was one time I was glad nobody listened to me. We followed the yellow blazes to a side road into a valley. At a stream crossing a yellow blaze went into the woods so Steve went in to search for the shelter. After about 5 minutes he came back and said it was about 200 yards inside the woods so off we went. It was a good thing too. At about 5:30 the skies opened up with heavy rain and lightning. Had we gone with my idea we might have had problems. Fortunately Steve's experience kept us out of trouble. It was really one time I was glad to be wrong.

The LBL Hike
Day Three

A heavy dew greeted us this morning but at least the skies were still clear. We packed up the tents and gear and got started back on the trail by 8 am. A couple of miles down the trail we stopped at a picnic area to munch on some breakfast bars. There was also a glamourous stone privy that I made use of too. Hey, when you get a luxury on the trail like that you make the best of it. The toe was beginning to become more of a problem as the feeling of an ice pick being stabbed into it came to mind. That was on each downhill as the toe was jammed into the front of the boot. After about 3 miles we made another stop and I asked Steve if he, by chance, had some clippers. It turned out he did have a small pair and I used that to cut the end of the nail off. I also put a thicker dressing on the end of it for some padding. That helped a lot to relieve the pressure but it was still pretty sore but I was able to get back up to a pretty good pace and got back ahead of Steve and O.W. to do my job of catching spider webs with my face. Because of that I was given the official trail name of 'Webhead'. I'm not sure if the spiders liked it although they did seem to have fun spinning their webs off the end of my hair. Some of the webs were so strong you could have almost used them as fishing line. We finally reached the planetarium visitors center where we used one of their shelters for our lunch stop. We were able to refill our water bottles there too. Steve went inside and came back with a Coke and Mr. Pibb. It had been several years since I had had a Pibb and I happily drank it down. Then another snaffoo happened as a strap on my pack popped loose. One of the eyelets on the end had pulled apart so we had to do some surgery to fix that so we could keep going.

After getting back on the trail we came to a path through some tall thistles where the bees were working like crazy. This little buy was so busy he didn't even notice he was on Candid Camera. Several other bees were really busy as well gathering their nectar. We saw one other large field of bright yellow flowers that I expect were being fed on too. Finally at about 4 pm we made it to the Brush Arbor shelter. We had a big hill to cross over to get there but it was a nice area and there was the best water source we had seen the entire trip, a spring with water cold enough you knew it had to come from deep under the ground. It was good to have some down time earlier in the day. O.W. got a fire going to keep the skeeters down. For supper this night I decided to go with beef stew. That really hit the spot.

We also had a visit from a 6-point buck who was feeding on some of the tasties provided by all the local oak trees. He didn't even seem to notice we were there. He hung around for about 15 minutes before moving on. The coyotes didn't follow us this time but we did get to hear something else in the middle of the night. At just before 12:30 I heard a sound a few hundred yards away. About ten minutes later the sound came again and this time it was definite. I had just heard my first elk bugle. He bugled one more time before going quiet. It was something I was hoping to see but if I didn't just hearing one was pretty cool. They've got that sound that's pretty unmistakenable.

The LBL Hike
Day Two

We got up that morning to find a large toadstoll that had come up overnight. It stood about 6 inches tall but had not spread out its umbrella yet. We had seen some with tops of about 10 inches across. Steve's dad some of the ones we saw were edible but personally I'll just stick to the morels.

We had clear skies that morning. We went up to a small work shack nearby where there was also a firetower. I'm not very good at climbing those kinds of towers (or any other kind of tower for that much as my knees begin to knock each others caps off). Steve, however, showed just how much of a manly man he was putting on his 40-pound pack and then making the trip to the top. I just stayed at the bottom and took pictures. The morning was a cool and crisp one. We hadn't slept much that night because of the coyotes serenading us. That first 11.2 miles had been a pretty good shock on our bodies too. We snacked on some breakfast bars and Steve made coffee (good ol' Folgers instant......I had to pass myself before of a caffeine thing I have...). I decided to keep the camera out of the bag today and put the zoom lens on. Of course as you would know nothing showed itself all day. I think they had somebody out there spying on me so they wouldn't get their pictures taken. And I half way expected that to happen.

Later in the day I had a problem develope on my right foot. It felt like a blister forming but something I noticed on my boot was a large dark spot even though rest of the boot had dried. At about 11 am we took a snack break and I pulled the boot off and saw the sock was all red. I knew then I had a different problem. Then I pulled the sock off and saw the whole foot was bloody. That was a bigger problem. Well....I hadn't trimmed my toenails before I left. (NOTE TO SELF: TRIM ALL TOENAILS BEFORE BIG HIKES!!) I got to looking and found that my sock had ripped my little toenail all the way back to the cuticle and blood had poured into my sock and boot. Yeah, it wasn't a pretty sight and it definitely hurt. I taped it down with a band-aid and tape and taped another toe with a missing nail from a previous problem. It wasn't going to stop me though. I thought about it getting infected but Steve put some hydrogen peroxide cream on it. Later I put some antibiotic cream on it as well. The downhills were the worse but I kept going.

The toe made me fall a little behind and I wasn't able to keep the pace I had been but it was still a nice day. Steve and his dad were clicking right along. Eventually we came to a sign that pointed us toward the shelter but we found a stream good enough to pump water from and decided to set up our tents in a field. I had chicken and noodles for supper and took it easy. I also found the toe had bled again so I put on a new dressing. We went to bed about 8:30 and it seemed the coyotes had maybe been following us. That night we heard them yelping and howling all around us and much closer. Some of them couldn't have been more than a couple hundred feet away if that much. We also had a deer drop by for a visit and I guess he didn't like us being in his field as he stomped the ground and snorted before moving on. I guess he thought we were going to get his soybeans in the field next door.

The LBL Hike
Day One

On September 18th, myself, Steve Willis and his father O.W. left for the Land Between the Lakes in western Kentucky to hike The North-South Trail. These next few posts will be about that hike and everything that happened, and didn't happen on it.

We left at about 7 am and there was talk of rain but Mother Nature first looked like she was going to give us a break as we saw two rainbows that morning (one a double one) and patches of blue skies. But as we know Mama can throw us a curve once in a while and the farther west we went the heavier the rain got. We stopped for gas near Ft. Campbell, Ky and watch a giant C-5A Galaxy transport jet make its final landing approach. That brought memories back for me from my time in 1973-74 when I spent 16 months stationed there in the Army. After that we were on our way south again.

About an hour and a half later we finally got to LBL and got our backcountry permits at the North Welcome Station and left my truck behind to go to the South Station where we would begin. Just as we began to walk toward the trailhead Mother Nature unloaded on us but we marched on even though things got soggy in a hurry.

It stayed that way for most of the day but it didn't bother the deer, which were out in numbers. We walked up on one forkhorn buck who stood by the trail to figure out what we were before ducking for the trees. A little later a six-pointer and four does headed for the trees and shortly after that we walked up on a doe in the middle of the field getting some tasty trees in the green up grass.

We didn't start walking till 1:30 and we had 11.2 miles to get done before dark so we pushed pretty hard. It was made even tougher by the muddy path but that was okay....I wasn't after anything easy. We finally made it to our first shelter at about 7:30 pm. These shelters were different than I expected, being made out of sections of large drain pipe with pea gravel inside. But they were dry and just being able to take it easy made things better. I fixed myself some freeze-dried lasagna (which really went down well) and crashed in the sleeping bag. I didn't sleep that well though for a couple of reasons. One was a pack of coyotes that serenaded us all night and owls that were hootin' and hollerin'. I still don't know what that was all about.