Sometimes I never know how much (or what) I am going to write. Starting into this report I was sure that I had writer’s block, but per usual, once I started writing the words just flowed from my ever-verbose fingers. I guess I have to make up for all of the other times that I am…

Frankly I’m not sure how many miles we hiked this time; supposedly 29 according to the trace notes, some guy’s GPS said 33, the signs on the trail said a puny 26, and the maps something else entirely. I don’t keep count much anymore, I just hike back to my car from the trailhead. A lot of times fellow hikers will ask me how far to the next landmark.…

I was having a conversation with one of my coworkers today about hiking, and she told me when hiking in bear country to wear bells and carry pepper spray. I then had to tell her a very old hiker joke: How can you tell if you see bear scat? Answer: it smells like pepper and has tiny bells in…

I really thought I was going to see a bear this time. The ground was soft and wet. I barely made any noise as I moved through the forest. Thanks to the heavy rain, there was not a soul out there to be seen or heard. There were not even any signs. No tracks, and no scratching posts;…

Hey Y’all. Heres some video of us hiking the Sheltowee on Section Four! You can see me, Daniel, and Greg under the camera at 1:03 and then cross the bridge to Cumberland Falls at about 1:50. The drone that took the footage freaked me out a few times. It sounded like a hive of bees, and I kept looking for a…

This was another amazing trip. My favorite part was camping and making some new friends in the shelter Saturday night. There is a strong camaraderie among long-distance hikers that few outsiders can really understand. We know the pain. We know the joy. We know what it takes to get the job done. We know the miles…

I headed out Sunday morning for a beautiful hike through the southern but rugged portion of the Big South Fork. On my way, I stopped for a brief visit to the Sheltowee Trace’s south terminus at Burnt Mill Bridge. It seems like ages ago that I began my year-long trek to complete the 319-mile trail. I parked my car…

This weekend my anthropology buddy and I did a little archaeological assessment of a known pre-historic human habitation site down in the Big South Fork. We started our day by climbing a steep 500’ hill to the site. The primary feature of the camp was a large shell-midden which was sheltered under an enormous sandstone overhang. With a very…

Have you ever seen the famous picture of Vietnamese Buddhist Thích Quang Duc self-immolating in the middle of a busy Saigon intersection? The image repeatedly came to me as I hiked along the undulating rocky trails of the Sheltowee Trace. I do not use this historical event as an analogy, but rather to illustrate the powers of mind over…

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step; what a wonderful idea.   But those are not my words. Wouldn’t it be amazing if they were? I would be the next stage for the ages for sure. However, this is an idiom dangerously approaching platitude; used, abused, and overused by hikers describing their own hikes as an analogy…