Last weekend Grant and I were childless, we wanted to do something fun that we couldn’t do with the girls. We both have been itching to go on a hike. I suggested it, thinking it would be just a day hike but a LONG day hike. Grant agreed after thinking about it and somehow it became an overnight trip. It was my job to pick the trail. I did some research, I love research and with the few guidelines that Grant gave me I picked Knobstone Trail. Knobstone is the longest trail in Indiana. According to the Indiana DNR website it is a 58mile (or 61miles depending where you look) backcountry hiking trail passing through Clark State Forest, Elk Creek Public Fishing Area, and Jackson-Washington State Forest. It is a “rugged, difficult trail to hike” and I can attest to that!
We wanted to "though hike" (no backtracking) so we took two cars. We parked one at our end point - Spurgeon Hallow and then drove on down to Leota trail head to start and leave the other car. We planned to hike more on Saturday, a few miles less on Sunday. For some reason we though the route we worked out would be around 17 to 18miles. It was 22, but I’ll get to that later.
We set out happy and excited with our backpacks full and ready to go at about 11am from Leota Trail Head. It did not take long to learn that this trail is in fact rugged and difficult. We walked up and down steep hills over and over and over. Truly, I thought I was going to die, this is Indiana people, its flat. NOT here! This is why its state owned land, what the F else can you do with this sadistic landscape! And to highlight the landscape someone thought it was best to climb to the top of EVERY hill. Walk around it? NO! Just walk around the top few feet!? NO WAY! Atop every hill the trials were lined with briers. At the bottom of each hill was a stream. Mostly small, some were bigger, lots of mud and pretty rocks. Some were tortuous! Like the 6foot deep craves that I had to climb out of. Grant scurried across a downed tree but that really freaked me out so I thought I would try the mud walls instead, great plan! I got down into the creek bed but getting up the other side was not happening. The mud would just crumble and slide down if you looked at it much less touch it. So Grant, my hero, took my pack, he took his belt off for me to use as a rope and he pulled me up! Talk about impressive! So after that ordeal we went right back to hiking up another steep hill.
And so it went for all of Saturday. My suggestion before we headed out was to pass SR 56 and camp about a mile in. State regulations require that you camp a mile from any road. So with that in mind I kept on, I told myself that I could make it to SR 56. I must have told myself 100 times that my body was able to do things that my brain couldn't imagine. I kept telling myself that I could make it. I kept waiting for SR56. when we hit 9miles and no SR56 we knew we had to start looking for a camp site. It was getting late, we had till 7:45 (sunset). We had not seen any people on the trail all day. We did see tracks and we made up stories about the people. There was a very small lady and a guy in Vibram five fingers with a dog. That dog was really ticked "lets go for a walk he said.. it will be fun he said". Poor dog. Anyway, the land was beautiful and for early spring it was surprisingly lively as far as plants and wildlife.
So as it got late on Saturday we came across a camp! A person! We didn't see the person but we did see their setup and fire. Because of this we thought we needed to get another mile in before camping. Thank God, at the top of the next hill there was a perfect campsite! I really didn't think I could go any further. We set up camp and Grant made a beautiful fire. I was pretty worthless, I tried to help but I was beat. Sorry Grant!
It rained Saturday night. I really enjoyed the sound of the rain but not the part where I woke up at 2am, it was pouring rain and I had to pee. Also, it was about 28 degrees outside at this point. I was NOT going out in the freezing rain to pee. So I turned over and went back to sleep. The call of nature kept waking me up so around 5am the rain had stopped and I left the tent. It was still really dark but I had my flashlight. Even so I couldn't find the trail leading to a nice "restroom" area that was nearby. So I had to try to take care of business at the edge of camp. I tried and tried AND tried. Nothing. I was cold and mad and sleepy! I wanted to sleep! But my bladder was so full that it was painful. I gave up after about 15min and went back to the tent. Sunrise was around 7:30 so I laid there and waited and tried to fall back to sleep. As soon as the sun was up enough for me to see where I was going I left the tent again and found the bathroom trail that lead away down the back side of the hill, away from camp and the trail. There were tons of down trees making for a perfect private area! Just what I needed!
Sunday morning Grant made another fire and we ate and packed up camp. We were back on the trial around 9am. On the trail just a few feet down from where we camped there were animal prints in the mud and fresh droppings. We are pretty sure that a coyote had been checking us out. I had seen a coyote in a field on the way to our trail head on Saturday but we had not seen anything that big on the trail (at that point anyway).
We went over one more hill and there was SR56! So with that I thought we had 6miles left, WRONG. The next mile marker we saw was 2miles further back than we thought we were! Then we thought we had a mile to the next trail head. We went two miles and nothing... Somehow our 5 or 6mile hike to the car turned into 7miles, no 8, nope 9, WTF 10... and so on. I felt like I was in the twilight zone! In this episode the hikers never reached the end!!! But thank the good Lord above, he answered my prayers and the 2nd day was much easier hiking! There is no way that I could have physically made it 11miles if it would have been like day one! There were some hills the 1st few miles of the day but not as bad. And we seen some deer as we came down the last big hill. I seen 3, running away from us. Just beautiful!
Between SR 56 and Oxley Trail-head there is a timber harvest, it was so very sad. It was like walking through a wasteland. The landscape was stripped with piles of wood lining the trail. This section of the trail was depressing. It really made you think about nature and conservation. To add to the depression there was a deer carcass, makes you think... And I wonder how hard it was for Vibram five fingers' to keep his dog away from it.
The 2nd half of the hike on Sunday was flat and muddy. We were now in the Jackson-Washington State Forest and we were following a river. Now we had fun things like trails with 5 inches of sloppy mud and no way to walk around it to deal with. And we seen people! There was a guy that was just out for a stroll. Then a guy hiking the whole trail, he was just setting out, 50miles left to go. I wonder if he had any idea what the trail was going to be like once he left the park... I wonder if he is still out there. And we passed a nice looking couple, they looked entertaining.. that was it for people. There really wasn't much to tell about for the last few miles, Grant said that it was as boring as a stroll through the neighborhood. Heck, I was fine with that!!
I recommend Knobstone Trail if you enjoy hiking on extremely steep hills with briers, tons of mud in the rainy season and no water in the summer. One thing I did like about the trail were all the campsites. There were so many. It would be fun to park, hike in a mile or two and camp for the night. You feel completely secluded on the trail. There is a plan to extend the trail up to Martinsville and that would give us 150 miles of continues trial. But there are private landowners to deal with so who knows when that will happen.
I wouldn't mind going back for a camp out!