[at-l] Adventure Hiking Trail thru-hike attempt trip report

[AThiker at smithville.net (Felix)]

Where to begin...hmmm...

I guess let's start at ruffly 8:15 Friday night...dusk...at a parking 
lot just off highway 462 in Harrison-Crawford SF, in Indiana. The sign 
said "Everybody welcome, come in, kneel down and pray"...no, wait...that 
was another sign. The sign actually said "Adventure Hiking Trail" and 
"American Discovery Trail" and "Disabled Hunters Trail". So, Pilot and I 
walked down that trail...into the darkness. We walked...and 
walked...and, there was darkness....and, we walked. We made excellent 
time...until about 7 o'clock the next morning when we figured out we had 
no idea where we were. Somehow, the sun came up on the wrong side of the 
trail...and, on the other side of the trail...about 30 yards from 
us...was a river that we had no idea was there.

Scratching our heads helped nothing but the itch. So, we looked at the 
map...something we did a whole bunch of times over the course of the 
next two days. Looking at the map helped nothing...not even the itch. 
So, we hiked on...and on. We hiked for nearly an hour never having a 
clue where we were or where we were going. Then, suddenly, out of no 
where and seemingly for no reason...there was a sign. "Adventure Hiking 
Trail-Map point C" it said. "Grand" said I (not really). So, we get out 
our map again. Looking at the sign and looking at the map and looking at 
each other and looking at the sun...told us basically nothing. What the 
sign was telling us and what the sun was telling us and what the map was 
telling us were essentially tri-polar opposites. So, we decided to 
follow the sign...left, the arrow said, was south....even though it 
couldn't possibly be based on the sun, and where we had started the 
night before. So, now we were hiking south from a point we thought we 
had passed hiking northbound approximately 10 hours earlier. South we 
hiked....and, hiked. We crossed a road, which we found on the map and, 
for the first time on the hike, we knew for certain where we were, and 
where we were going. We hiked on a ways, down through a couple of 
'hollers'...with streams with great big dry boulders in them...and, some 
dry stones and some dry sand...lots of dry things...the only wet things 
were all of our clothes. We hiked on to a roadcrossing...nice new 
pavement. We were out of water...parched, we were. None of the streams 
on the map had any water in them. We'd hiked a little over 4 miles and 
the temps were in the mid-80s. So, what do we do? We were pretty sure 
there was no water ahead of us...and, there was little traffico on the 
road. So, we looked at the map...and, saw what should be a house not far 
up this newly paved road. So, we walked...to the house. Knock knock 
knock. Nobody home. Knocking again found nobody home again. We went 
around back and did that knocking thing again. There was nobody home in 
the back of the house, either. So, we decided to steal water. Pilot and 
I have hiked somewhere around 9,000 cumulative miles in our lives and 
had never stolen water before. We are about 5 miles into a 27 mile loop 
hike and we're already thievin'.

So, I fill my 'Big Slam' bottle quickly and hand the hose to Pilot to 
fill her bottle and bladder...I begin to chug the water from my 'Big 
Slam' bottle....and, fairly quickly realize that there was something 
wrong with the water...apparently the water had been in that hose for a 
while...in the hot sun...and, had taken on a horrible, horrible taste 
and toxicity. My throat began to burn and my mouth hurt. It did not, 
however, stop us from stealing more water...(it was a while before I 
figured out why the water had that horrible, horrible taste) We hurried 
away from the house as we could hear some sort of farm implements 
running down the road and we wanted not to get caught in our first water 
stealin' efforts.

Back to the trail we go with intentions to hike 6.4 miles to a shelter 
with a spring. We hike that 6.4 miles in the now low-90? temps, crossing 
many more dry sand/boulder/stone creeks...sweating all the while. The 
shelter, Old Homestead Shelter, of course had no spring...at least no 
spring with water in it....so, we finished off the last of our 
ill-gotten water and headed to the next body of water on the map...Cold 
Friday Creek, near a gravel road and a short 1.3 mile hike away. It 
didn't take us long to see how dry those boulders and stones and that 
sand was...and a cold Friday had turned to a very hot Saturday. We were 
in dire need of water at this time. Going on, up the hill, would have 
been foolish as we knew there'd be no water there.We considered hiking 
down the gravel road and to the Ohio River...and, as we pondered, I 
spied  something off in the near-distance...two blue-capped jugs...of 
store-bought spring water...gallon jugs. Eyes the size of saucers told 
Pilot something was happening and I walked (limped, really) to retrieve 
our find. On the side of one jug was written "Please leave-6/25/04". So, 
we start to think about what we're going to do: Take one?  Take some of 
one? Take both? Take what we need? Take none?  Then a quick look at the 
other helped us make our decision...it said "Please Leave: To be picked 
up 6/25/04"...we figured the the 'Week Late' rule was in affect and the 
water was ours. We drank...and, drank...and, there was much rejoicing. 
"yea".  We each carried about 3 quarts of water up the hill and about 2 
miles to the next shelter...a thunderstorm rinsing the hot sweat away 
with hot rain for the last half hour, or so. The shelter area was nice. 
A couple of nice views of the Ohio River are to be had from the picnic 
table and we saw an eagle riding a high-wind thermal. The high winds 
were nice as they cooled us and blew the mosquitoes away. We had a 
leisurely evening after a tiring 13 or so mile day. I built a fire. I 
did not eat ice cream.

A little rain through the night made things a little wet as we got ready 
to leave Sunday morning. The sky was bright and the breeze was cool, 
though. We hiked about 2.4 miles to a public campground and the nicest 
restroom I've ever encountered while hiking. We filled up our water 
bottles and had pleasant conversations with a few 'car campers' and we 
were on our way.  Another mile and a half took us to the singlemost 
important spot on this hike.  The back of the map says this about the 
bridge...which it calls 'Post#3 Old Iron Bridge'..."This bridge is 
UNSAFE! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CROSS unless it is obvious that repairs have 
been completed! The trail section from Post#3 to Post#4 will remain 
CLOSED until the bridge crossing is reopened. 3.6 miles from Post #3 to 
Post#4"  Now, let me say this about that...first of all, the bridge had 
not been repaired...possibly ever...second of all, I did not see the 
part about the section from #3 to #4 being closed until the bridge was 
repaired. There is an alternative trail that turns right and heads east 
along the river. Pilot and I decided to cross that un-repaired bridge 
anyway. So...we walked across the bridge on 2.5 inch wide, rusted iron 
I-beams, holding on to the 2 inch angle-iron sides of the bridge. We  
did this, slowly, over the 225 feet, or more, of the bridge...as it 
crossed about 40 feet  above the Blue River. People stopped and watched. 
It was quite a sight, I'm sure, seeing two backpackers with backpacks 
essentially tightrope walking across the Blue River. We made it, and 
fairly easily, to the other side. It was definitely the most fun of the 
hike. We got to the trailhead on the other side of the highway and took 
a break...and, looked at the map. We had 3.6 miles to a shelter and a 
spring that was supposed to be running. After much hiking...and, 
rehiking...and, looking at the map...and, hiking...and, trying to figure 
out where we were...and, looking at the map...I found the thing that 
said that this section was closed...That explained the lack of markings 
and poor trail quality. We kept looking at the map and trying to figure 
out where we were...and, for possibly the first time in my hiking 
career, I ended up someplace farther down the trail than I thought I 
was. We were hiking...and, all of the sudden there was a paved 
road...??...There wasn't supposed to be a paved road before the shelter. 
So, I flagged down a truck...from Illinois...and asked the guy "Can you 
tell me where we are?" and he said "I'm probably not a good guy to ask. 
We just moved here last week." He looked at my map and showed me where 
we were...about a mile or so from the offices of Wyandotte Cave. He 
gaves us a ride to the office so we could get some water (we were out 
again...having passed our shelter with a spring without even knowing 
it). The woman in the office was excited to see us for some reason. We 
bought sodas and Pilot got ice cream and we filled our water bottles and 
the woman gave us a ride back to the trail 'If I can take your pictures 
for our website"...get in.  She dropped us off and took pictures and we 
hiked on. "This doesn't feel right" I say. "We shouldn't be this close 
to that road." We hike on. Before ya know it, we're coming out of the 
woods about 100 yards from the parking lot at the offices of the 
Wyandotte Caves..."Damn it"...turn around we do. We hike back up the 
hill. We walk around the woods a bit looking for a trail that does what 
the map shows it doing. When we find it, we also find a sign that says 
"Northern section closed"...this was a very old sign. We hike on. We 
hiked on and on. We knew, for the mostpart, where we were as there were 
some ancient posts with blazes showing that we were on the old trail. 
Hiking on we did. At some point, towards the end, we got off the old, 
closed trail and onto another old closed trail that lead us ruffly 2.5 
miles in the wrong direction. We got to a roadcrossing and had no trail 
anywhere...so, a 2.5 mile roadwalk...back to a trail that didn't 
exist...without any water. The road walk ended...oddly enough, at the 
car. We got in...happy to be there...and went to the park entrance and 
asked for a hiking trails map. We looked at the map over dinner to find 
out that we had hike 9.7 miles on closed trail...1.5 miles to the office 
and back...2.5 miles on a wrong 'alternative' trail that meant 2.5 miles 
back on the road. So...from the bridge...we hiked about 16 miles that 
weren't on the Adventure Hiking Trail...and, had we turned right at that 
point and followed the "new" Adventure Hiking Trail...we would have been 
to our car...and, completed an Adventure Hiking Trail thru-hike...in 
about 5 miles...Instead, for the weekend, we hiked roughly 34 miles to 
thru-hike a 27 mile trail that is only 24 miles long...and, we still 
didn't do it.  And, this damned trip report took longer to write than it 
did to get to the trail...
(sidebar: we saw no other hikers on the trail this weekend...or, horse 
riders...)

Questions? 

-- 
Felix J.
ME-->GA '98
"Your Move"
ALT '03 KT '03
http://Felixhikes.tripod.com/