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

[shellydhale at earthlink.net (Shelly Hale)]

Signs, signs, everywhere there are signs.  They're blocking up the scenery
and breaking up my mind.  They're always telling you to do this, or don't do
that.  Sheesh...can't you read the signs?

Shelly Hale
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Felix" <AThiker@smithville.net>
To: "AT-list" <at-l@mailman.backcountry.net>
Sent: Monday, July 05, 2004 11:55 PM
Subject: [at-l] Adventure Hiking Trail thru-hike attempt trip report


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/



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