For our hike, we started at the Oak Grove Shelter and followed a spur off of Trail 5 into the canyon. The trail dropped down through several steep switchbacks before reaching the creek and Trail 2. We hiked up the rocky bed of Clifty Creek for a couple hundred yards. There isn't really a trail through here; you just walk up on the rocks next to the creek. One of the neat things about hiking in the creek is that we were right there next to lots of the little waterfalls in the creek. With the recent rain, some of the big cliffs to the west of the river had little waterfalls flowing off of them. Soon, we reached a point where a metal cable crossed the creek. There was a little Trail 5 sign hanging on the cable. We used this cable as a handline as we crossed the slippery rocks to the other side. Soon after this crossing, the trail went up to the rim of the canyon on a steep dirt trail. The forest along this strech was covered in bright green Lily of the Valley plants. We were too early to see the flowers, but the bright green was still pretty. After climbing up about 300 ft, we reached Trail 8 on the rim of the canyon. For the next two miles, we rolled up and down on the rim of the canyon. There were many great views down into the canyon and of smaller waterfalls flowing into the canyon. After about two miles, Trail 8 began a long descent back into the canyon. About half a mile later, we were back at the banks of Clifty Creek. We made another big creek crossing here and picked up Trail 2 again. We followed the creek bed up for about half a mile. Another really neat thing about hiking in the creek bed was all the fossils. The rocks of Clifty Falls State Park were just loaded with all kinds of small fossils like the kinds found at the Falls of the Ohio. When we reached Trail 4, we hiked up the switchbacks and up a side canyon to Hoffman Falls. Just like Little Clifty Falls, the view was limited, but it was still neat. After Hoffman Falls, we hiked back on the road for 10 minutes to close the loop. We hiked the four mile loop in about two hours. On the way out of the park, we hiked Trail 1 down to the Ohio River Lookout Tower. The view was pretty nice, but was ruined by the massive power plant on the banks of the Ohio River. Overall, Clifty Falls State Park is an awesome natural gem with some great scenery and waterfalls.
Clifty Falls State Park is one of southern Indiana's scenic gems. The main natural feature of the park is the 300 foot deep canyon that Clifty Creek has carved out over millions of years. The canyon has four big waterfalls in it; Clifty Falls, Little Clifty Falls, Tunnel Falls, and Hoffman Falls. Clifty Falls and Little Clfity Falls are both 60 feet high, Tunnel Falls is 83 feet high, and Hoffman Falls is 78 feet high. Yesterday, my mom and I hiked a four mile loop at the park. We entered the park from the northern entrance off of Indiana 62. First, we stopped at the Clifty Shelter. After we parked the Prius, we walked 100 yards to the Clifty Falls overlook. Clifty Falls is actually two waterfalls. There is a smaller cascade first before the creek plunges 60 feet over the main falls. Just down a couple of stairways and on a side creek, Little Clifty Falls pours off another 60 ft. high cliff. Unlike Clifty Falls, you don't get a really good view of the waterfall. On the way to the Little Clifty Falls overlook, we walked right by Cake Rock. Just like its name sounds, Cake Rock looks like a gigantic slice of cake perched on the edge of a cliff. We hiked back up the stairs to our car and drove down to the Tunnel Falls Trailhead. Just down several flights of wooden and stone steps, the Tunnel Falls Overlook was on the edge of another side canyon. We got a pretty good view of the upper part of Tunnel Falls from here.
For our hike, we started at the Oak Grove Shelter and followed a spur off of Trail 5 into the canyon. The trail dropped down through several steep switchbacks before reaching the creek and Trail 2. We hiked up the rocky bed of Clifty Creek for a couple hundred yards. There isn't really a trail through here; you just walk up on the rocks next to the creek. One of the neat things about hiking in the creek is that we were right there next to lots of the little waterfalls in the creek. With the recent rain, some of the big cliffs to the west of the river had little waterfalls flowing off of them. Soon, we reached a point where a metal cable crossed the creek. There was a little Trail 5 sign hanging on the cable. We used this cable as a handline as we crossed the slippery rocks to the other side. Soon after this crossing, the trail went up to the rim of the canyon on a steep dirt trail. The forest along this strech was covered in bright green Lily of the Valley plants. We were too early to see the flowers, but the bright green was still pretty. After climbing up about 300 ft, we reached Trail 8 on the rim of the canyon. For the next two miles, we rolled up and down on the rim of the canyon. There were many great views down into the canyon and of smaller waterfalls flowing into the canyon. After about two miles, Trail 8 began a long descent back into the canyon. About half a mile later, we were back at the banks of Clifty Creek. We made another big creek crossing here and picked up Trail 2 again. We followed the creek bed up for about half a mile. Another really neat thing about hiking in the creek bed was all the fossils. The rocks of Clifty Falls State Park were just loaded with all kinds of small fossils like the kinds found at the Falls of the Ohio. When we reached Trail 4, we hiked up the switchbacks and up a side canyon to Hoffman Falls. Just like Little Clifty Falls, the view was limited, but it was still neat. After Hoffman Falls, we hiked back on the road for 10 minutes to close the loop. We hiked the four mile loop in about two hours. On the way out of the park, we hiked Trail 1 down to the Ohio River Lookout Tower. The view was pretty nice, but was ruined by the massive power plant on the banks of the Ohio River. Overall, Clifty Falls State Park is an awesome natural gem with some great scenery and waterfalls. I'm on spring break now, so we came to Indiana to visit my grandparents. Usually when we come, we stop by Falls of the Ohio State Park. The Falls of the Ohio are a two mile long strech of the Ohio River with lots of exposed Limestone. The Limestone is about 387 million years old. Three hundred million years ago, the area was covered by a shallow sea. As thousands of tiny shellfish and other sea animals died, they sank to the bottom of the ocean. Year after year after year, a thick layer formed. Eventually, the weight of the dead animals compressed the lower layers into rock. Between then and now, the sea drained away and the upper layers eroded away. Now, the Falls are one of the largest, natural fossil beds in the world. In the summer, you can spend hours wandering the exposed rock finding all kinds of neat fossils. When we went yesterday, the Ohio River was near flood stage and 95% of the fossil beds were underwater. We still went down and explored the area though. The beds that were above water had lots of cool fossils in them. At one point, I was walking on some rocks next to the river and I almost stepped on a beaver. The beaver was bigger than I thought beavers were and had a big, flat, black tail and a reddish brown fur. It jumped into the muddy water and swam away. About five minutes later, we saw the beaver again. That was the first time my mom or I had ever seen a real, live beaver. Soon after we saw the beaver, we hiked back up to the parking lot. We then tried to hike the 3/4 of a mile Woodland Loop Trail. The trail was a great, easy hike through the forest until we got to the bottomland. The recent floods had piled up tons of huge logs that totally blocked the trail. We turned around and hiked back the way we came. On the way back to my grandparent's house, we stopped at Dairy Queen and I got a delicous Mint Oreo Blizzard.
This weekend, Troop 21 had a backpacking/ advancement weekend at Taum Sauk Mountain State Park. At first, I was planning on going down Friday night and going backpacking. However, I got a cold on Wednesday and decided not to go on Thursday night. My dad still went down with the Troop on Friday at 5:30. Around eight on Friday night, I was feeling good enough to go down Saturday morning. My mom and I packed up for the backpacking trip on Friday and decided to wake up at 5:30 on Saturday to drive down there. We woke up and left St. Louis around 6:40. About two hours later, we got down to the park. Soon after our arrival, we had some adults staying in the main campground drive us 5 miles away and drop us off at the Claybaugh Creek Trailhead. From here, we hiked 5.5 miles back up to Taum Sauk Mountain. This pretty section of the Ozark Trail climbed 500 ft. through glades, pine trees, large rocks, small waterfalls, deep valleys, and pretty streams. When we arrived back at the main campsite, we ate lunch. On the hike in the morning, I started to feel bad again, and after lunch, I decided not to go backpacking. We hiked to Mina Sauk Falls with the backpackers. Then they headed down towards Devils Tollgate to camp,and we hiked back on the Mina Sauk Falls loop. The trail to Mina Sauk Falls was beautiful, passing through huge glades with great views of the valleys and mountains. With all our recent rain, the waterfall was really flowing nicely. We got back to our car around 5. We had hiked a total of about 9 miles. I didn't go to the St. Joe mountain bike race today because I wasn't feeling any better than I did yesterday. That just means the Lost Valley Luau on the 28th will be my first race of 2010. Me at Mina Sauk Falls Today, my mom and I drove down to St. Joe State Park to pre-ride next weekend's race course. I think we finally got riding around 11:20ish. We set off from the Pim Day Use Area following yellow survey ribbon. The trail that is the race course had evidently had some illegal motorcycle use and they had left ruts. To avoid the worst of the ruts, the trail has been rerouted. These little reroutes haven't been trimmed yet, so they were just a little bit better than bushwhacking on a bike. After about three miles of reroutes, we weren't liking the trail so much, but then we crossed the paved bike path. After that crossing, we went downhill on a really fun, nice trail through a pretty pine grove. Down in the valley the trail went through a lot of little creeks and then came to the Tubes. The Tubes are three steel culverts that go under a paved bike path. The trail went through the far right one. We both walked our bikes out the end because it dropped into a really rocky creekbed. The trail continued in the valley crossing some more creeks and making a long climb back to the bike path on the ridge. After the climb, the trail went though a cool savannah area. Very soon after the savannah, my mom rode up to me and told me I had a flat. It was my rear wheel, too. Both my flats have come on my rear wheel, and both times its taken me forever to get the tire back on the bike. It took as long to put the tire back on the bike as it did to change the flat. On the positive side, I used my CO2 cartridge without wasting the whole thing. After the flat, we somehow followed orange ribbon and biked in a circle. After a little backtracking, we got back on the right path. After maybe a mile more of riding, we got back to the paved path and followed that 0.6 miles back to the trailhead. Biking through the pines Here I am dropping into one of the creek crossings. This is picture of the savannah right before I got my flat. Two weekends ago was Junior Parents Weekend at the University of Portland. Our whole family flew out to see Nate. My dad got in early Wednesday afternoon, and my mom and I got in around 10:30 at night. I spent Wednesday night at Nate's house. The next morning, I went to Nate's Coastal and Marine Systems class. It was taught by an Australian teacher. She talked about tides and how they shape the life that lives on the coast. After his class, my mom and dad picked us up and we drove to Cathedral Park to eat lunch. The park was a beautiful, grassy area below St. John's Bridge. After lunch, we played Ultimate Frisbee. After that, we dropped Nate off at his house and drove to the Columbia River Gorge. We hiked 2.3 miles up to Angel's Rest. The trail started out in a dark, old growth forest climbing up past big, mossy boulders and across talus slopes that had views of the Columbia. The trail curved into the Coopey Creek drainage. There were two pretty neat waterfalls, but you couldn't really get a good view of them. After crossing the creek on a bridge, the trail climbed through three switchbacks, and entered the area that was burned in 1991. Soon after entering this burned area, we got our first good view of Angel's Rest rising above us. The trail climbed on through around 10 more switchbacks before crossing a big talus field. This talus field had great views of the western Columbia. One more switchback, and we were on the Angel's Rest ridge. A short scramble up and we were on the summit. The views were absolutly beautiful with the Gorge and Columbia River spread out below us. The wind was blowing at a pretty steady 45 mph. We spent only 5 minutes on the top before descending. My dad and I tried to hike up Devil's Rest, but we turned around after 25 minutes of uphill hiking. Once we got back to the car, we picked up Nate from his house before going to my uncle's house. As usual, my uncle cooked an awesome meal. We watched the Olympics for a while and then went to bed. The next morning, my mom and I hiked up to Council Crest. From the top, we could see Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Rainer. Then, we went to the Oregon Musuem of Science and Industry. I went in and saw Samson, a T-Rex skeleton. On the way to Nate's house, we stopped at IKEA and bought him a table. Once we got to his house, my dad and I set up the table in an hour. That night, Friday, we went back to my uncle Randall's house; this time, we brought one of Nate's friends, James. We ate a great salmon pasta dish and watched the Olympics some more. On Saturday morning, Parent's Weekend started with a breakfast buffet. After the breakfast, we went to a "Life After College" talk. After this, we went back to Nate's house before the President's Luncheon began. At noon, we headed over to the President's Luncheon. The catered meal was pretty good. After the luncheon, we watched one of Nate's friends in her Ultimate Frisbee game. After that, Nate and I got on mountain bikes and biked over to Forest Park. We biked over the Willamette River on the St. John's bridge. Soon, we started our climb up the famous Germantown Road. Germantown is a narrow, winding road without a shoulder heading up 1,000 ft. up the hills through Forest Park. One and a half miles of uphill riding brought us to the trailhead. From here, we biked on the Lief Erikson Trail for several miles. Then, we climbed up through some steep, muddy switchbacks and up a long fire road to Skyline Blvd. Once we hit Skyline, we had biked up 1,100 ft. from the bottom of Germantown. From Skyline, we rode down Saltzman Road. This wide open fire road descended 400 ft. over 1.5 miles. The wide, fire roads in Oregon were fun to ride down, especially because Missouri is almost all singletrack. We rode back down the Lief Erikson for several miles before going down another fire road back to the St. Johns bridge. We rode back across St. John and headed back to Nate's house. In the end, we biked 20 miles. The riding was a combination of bike lanes, sidewalks, singletrack, fire roads, and narrow roads without shoulders. The trail ranged from dusty to total mud pits. That ride was one of my favorite parts of the trip. We went back to Randall's for our last night before flying out on Sunday. At first, we were just going to send my dad out, but then, my mom and I decided to come. That was a great choice, we had perfect weather, and I had a great time. While we were driving into the Gorge, we got awesome views of Mt. Hood. One of the waterfalls on Coopey Creek. One of the smaller waterfalls on Coopey Creek Hiking across the talus field near the top of Angel's Rest Me on top of Angel's Rest Hiking up the Marquam Greenway Trail on the way up to Council Crest Here is the view of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainer from Council Crest. Mt. Hood from Council Crest This is a picture of Samson, the T-Rex skeleton at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Here is a Google Earth Map of our Forest Park Bike Map. On the way to the airport, we stopped at a great view of Mt. St. Helens rising over downtown Portland. Below, is the view of Mt. Hood from the same location. Sunset from the plane. When we left Portland, it was sunney and 60 degrees. When we touched down in Kansas City, it was 28 degrees, cloudy, and there were 6 inches of snow. |
AuthorMy name is Ben. I love to read, hike, backpack, mountain bike, rock climb, and mountain bike race. Since there are so many great hikes in Missouri, I decided to make a website to describe them. The Mountain BikeI ride a 2010 Specialized Rockhopper Expert 29er. I've upgraded all the original parts, went 1x9 and dropped 5lbs from the stock bike.
My Road BikeI have Willier Izoard for road riding and racing.
My CX BikeI ride a 2010 Specialized Tricross
2010 Race ResultsRiver Trails Mountain Bike Challenge (Kansas)
1st Junior 15-18 Tilles Park Crit 5th Juniors 10-18 Delmarvelous Crit 5th Juniors 15-18 Greensfelder Challenge 1st Juniors 15-18 Rhett's Run 2nd Juniors 15-18 2009 Mtb. Race Results
ICCC Castlewood Race 5th Beginner 19 and under Greensfelder Classic 5th Beginner 19 and under Burning at the Bluff 3rd in Burnin Virgins Category Archives
January 2012
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