The Cursed Trail

In honor of Halloween, I present the ‘Cursed Trail’. The full trail I had selected is around 90 miles taking 6 days.

- I first hiked 45 miles of the trail in February while experiencing cold nights, high water on the trail, and hiking in the smoke near a controlled burn. 

- The 2^nd time was about 60 miles in December. In this case I stopped after hearing that the last section was closed due to fallen trees from 2 hurricanes.

- The 3^rd time was only 35 miles in March. That time the river level was 66’ which flooded many crossings making it unsafe for me to try, especially hiking alone. 

This time I still didn’t make the full distance. I made my personal best for this trail of 70 miles over 5 days though. The first section was fine. While the last section of the trail is officially open and much work has been done to clear or mark much of the trail, there were LOTS of down trees still on the trail. As one hiker on the map app commented, it’s a full body workout. I had to crawl under, climb over, and/or walk around lots of trees all while wearing a backpack. I had to use the map app to find my way back to the trail quite a few times.

The problem was that finding the trail again wasn’t very obvious. Much of the trail consisted of a thin trail but mostly high grass and weeds. By going in October, plants haven’t died back yet. There is a plant called Devil's beggarticks. While pretty when flowering, the seed is barbed so they catch on animals who disperse them. My clothes were completely covered with these barbs. One evening I spent an hour removing the large portion of the seed from my clothes but the smaller barbs stayed in making the clothes scratchy the next day.

I finally reached the point where I realized that while the view of the river was gorgeous, the extra work and stress of going around down trees made the hike “not fun”. All the bushwhacking meant I was only covering half the distance I expected. I called John so he could pick me up a day early. Turns out I also had a problem with my cell phone that prevented me from charging it. I would have run out of power that last day. Oh, and I found out I had 3 small holes in my tent. Ants or sand fleas must have come in the last night to bite me. I had lots of bug bites the last day.

On the good side...The river level was much lower this time. Instead of the 66’ when the trail was flooded, it was only 50’. This first picture was where the board bridge were flooded in March. This time (2^nd picture), there was absolutely no water under the crossing.

For cool animals, I saw a coyote step out on the trail ahead of me. He walked ahead of me then turned to notice me for the first time and quickly ran off. I also saw a cottonmouth (water moccasin) on a creek near where I was filtering water. No issue there either.

Some pretty pictures too. THIS is why I like hiking!

Reunions

My college friends got together this week in Columbus Ohio. I flew up then Leslie and Mark picked me up at the airport. They drove to Alum Creek State Park so we could hike and talk while we waited until we could check into the hotel.

They reserved a suite which became our “party room”. We spent every evening reminiscing, sharing pictures, telling stories, and laughing. Oh, and pretend flirting with the pizza delivery man until we found out he was still in high school!

We did a tour of American Whistle Corp. They are the only company in the U.S. who make metal whistles. As engineers we internally critiqued the tour guide’s talk (no, they didn’t extrude metal but were actually stamping, forming and shearing). Otherwise, it was a great tour even with the kids loudly using their free whistles at the end of the tour.

Our original plan was to go to the Columbus Zoo but it rained heavily so we toured the Ohio Statehouse. The end of the tour was quite memorable as we walked back to our cars that was a half a block away through heavy rain and ankle deep puddles. The time before supper was spent hanging up wet clothes and using the hair dryer as needed.

The next day started with a tour of Anthony-Thomas Candy. They have a ‘sweet’ set up with a closed in balcony all around the plant so tours can watch the operation. No pictures are allowed in the plant but it was quite interesting. There might have been excessive candy and chocolate purchasing at the end.

The afternoon was a visit to the Columbus Botanical Gardens. For me, I enjoyed the demonstration on glass making the best. You then find gorgeous glass sculptures among the gardens. We finished the day at Schmidt’s Sausage Haus Restaurant.

The next day most of our group left but Doreen and Bill drove in to stay the night. We haven’t got together since July 2018. We spent a day basically just talking though with a visit to the local mall just to walk around.

Great week!