Knobstone Weekend Trip Report

“Haven't been posting much lately, but I am still hiking ;)

Spent my birthday on the Knobstone Trail last weekend hiking a short 7-mile section from Leota to Elk Creek.

I car-camped, yes car-camped Friday (my birthday) with Jennifer at Tipsaw Lake in Perry County. On Saturday morning Mark and Tim met us at the campsite and we headed for the Knobstone.

The drive was nice. Beautful 70-something day with big puffy white clouds. On the way we saw a bleach-blond with black roots, feathered-mullet-wearing redneck with an american flag leather jacket on a Harley about three sizes too small for him. If nothing else that was worth the trip.

We parked the cars at the paved rec area at Elk Creek Lake and packed in around the lake. The west end of the lake was a mud pit from all the rain and Mark slipped in filling his boots with mud and water. I managed to stay dry. Jennifer, the only smart one, hiked in sandals.

Around the back side of Elk Creek Lake we set up camp with a view of the lake. We then bushwacked the rest of the way around the lake across the dam and back to the cars.

We then drove to the Leota Trail Head and daypacked back to camp. On the way to the trailhead Tim had messed up the space-time continuum by accidently writing a journal entry on a blank page between two past trips.

We had a close call when we had been hiking for almost two miles, crested a hill and found ourselves back at the car. We discussed what might happen if this continued and it wasn't the car we kept ending back up at.

After making a careful journal entry in the correct order we started off again. We were able to escape the time-loop, but we did have to hike up Vic Swain Hill twice.

There were lots of nice wildflowers along the trail and the bugs were not bad yet. It was an absolutely georgeous weekend for a hike. We saw lots of toads of many varieties, including some cool reddish purple ones. We also saw three king snakes, including one that had to be more than six feet long.

Along the trail we found some cut vines. I attempted the first one and it came crashing down, just narrowly missing my head. The second one was much sturdier and made for some great swings out over a large ravine.

Someone, probably the Hoosier Hikers Council has been very busy on this section of the trail. Much of the northern of the section has been rerouted with many more switchbacks than the original trail. It is a good improvement.

We made it back to camp and settled in for a nice evening on the water. After dinner we had a few drinks and Time probably had a few too many. He ended up half naked with sharpened stick dancing around the fire doing war cry and threatening to attack the campers on the other side of the lake.

One of the logs we tossed in the fire that evening proved to be the home of an entire colony of ants. We spend much of the rest of the evening watching the behavior of the ants as they systematically moved the eggs and queen to a new location. Warrior ants three times the size of the rest of the colony did most of the work, while smaller scouts went out in all directions and came back to report on what they'd found. There was much carnage too, half burned bodies etc.

The next morning we hiked out to the cars again. As we lay around in the sun at Elk Creek Lake we witnessed a posse of mennonites we rode in to spend some time around the lake. Later a large group of churchgoers showed up and we were audience to full-submersion baptism in the lake.

We headed out and stopped in Salem at a Mexican restaurent, EL Maguey (The Agave) for a great lunch.

It was a perfect birthday.

Here are a few pics narrated with captions:

http://community.webshots.com/album/549789456FAXgkd”

“Nice report and photos, dorks!”

“On the way we saw a bleach-blond with black roots, feathered-mullet-wearing redneck with an american flag leather jacket on a Harley about three sizes too small for him. If nothing else that was worth the trip.

aaah, you gotta love southern indiana...good trip report”

“great report and pics, looks like a nice trail.”

“Fun trip and report (ahhh, see what young love will do! lol ;-)”

“hey John, did you camp on the clear grassy overlook with the rock fire ring?”

“LOL! I love it :D


But really--- the ants...EWW!”

“Nomad, no we saw that spot but someone already snagged it. Probably the ones Tim wanted to attack. We were on the south side of the lake at the back of one of the inlets. It's right off the trail.”

“can't we all just get along?”

“Good report. That low-lying area on the west side of the lake definitely gets muddy with much precipitation.”