Better knowing us...

And now better knowing us part 2 of 10. This week we'll be learning a bit more about Kasia (Ka-sha). She is a bit more mysterious than the rest of us, the quite type. We'd suspect that she is up to no good if it weren't for the fact that she is always smiling.

One would suspect that being one of the few girls in this group she'd be in a more motherly don't be doing that boys, kind of role. I mean that is what the movies and TV would have had her portrayed as. Unfortunately this is not the case, we simply have no voice of reason on our hikes. Instead she adds to the oddity of the group. Her own geekyness to blend with ours. Yes despite the fact that we are spending all this time out doors and with nature, we are really a group of nerds for the most part. That is beside the point however... or was that the point. Frankly I just don't recall anymore.

Back to the bio, I cannot really think of much more to add, as I do not know much about Kasia. (other than that she spells her name funny) Really I'm not sure we should trust her as much as we do... always smiling. What IS she hiding behind that devious look. Was she really in St. Louis last weekend? Or was she at some sort of secret meeting of an evil organization of... evil... I suppose we cannot be too certain in these trying times. Though if she was at an evil meeting St. Louis would not be a bad place to have it.

You buy all this coffee....

and you never drink it.

The Group

Julie, Kevin(new guy), Drew, Luke, Adam, Doc, Scott, DanBo

and up front Me

Hope you like inside jokes that odds are you will never get, 'cause well... that wont be the last one. It was a good hiking day, we've had great luck with the weather so far. Hoping that will hold for us, but I'm sure we'll be hiking in the rain at least once. We managed the furthest hike yet today, 10.3mi. This weeks updates will include another bio, and I'm sure at least one little bit of musing on my part. Right now though I am just too tired. So just the raw details is what you'll get for now. We were on road for the first 4.5mi where we crossed through the glorious town of Alto Pass. Also we traveled through the limbo Cedar and Olive, more on that later though. Once off road we had some muddy terrain but nothing too bad, some minor elevation changes overall though much easier that last weekend. We ended up missing the turn to head up the west side of little cedar so we cut east and took an atv trail up till we intersected with the river to river trail again. Easy going and no issues from there regarding loss of trail.

I suppose I've enough energy to regal you lot with another tail of this trail. If you'll simulate some wavy lines and chime like music we'll get this flashback started. The year is twenty ought seven, I'm in my sophomore year of college and it's a bright sunny day out. I decided to revisit a trail where I had a good time with my father and brother years ago. The Little Cedar Loop Trail. Now we're heading down Landreth road and already things are interesting. The road and had deep ruts and was great fun to maneuver the minivan down. So, we got to the trail head and made our way along the loop. Played around on the spillway for a bit and continued on. I hate to admit this but I didn't bring a compass, a map, or my GPS. POOR PLANNING on my part. This resulted in us heading east for way too long. So as you might be figuring out, yes this was not the first time I hiked this part of the river to river. Once we got to the end I got a ride with some mountain biker back to the van. Was lucky to have run into them, as it would have been a long walk home. I was happy that Doc was able to join us this weekend because he was one of the people with me when we went that wrong direction.

Mud Mud Mud

Well, I went out scouting again today, trying to see if we could set up a car near the Little Cedar Lake trail head. Doesn't seem likely. Though I do believe one of the areas I was checking out was the wrong one. I have a very bad habit of forgetting to grab the maps. It also doesn't help that I often scout alone, as I have not yet mastered the read map while driving as my father has.

As I headed back towards Carbondale I decided just to have a go at Landreth Road again. This is the actual access point for the Little Cedar Loop trail. When I first went down this road on my own, about 2yrs or so ago it was a rough drive. The major storm we had on May 8th last year did not help that at all. That storm simple covered the road with trees completely blocking it off. Well almost a year later and they have cleared the trees, but the road is worse than ever. While I took the minivan through and around some deep ruts before I was afraid to take my truck on what was there now. First let me give you and idea of my truck. It is a 95 Chevy 2500, it is lifted and has 4wd. So I clicked in the 4 wheel and set on down the road. Should I have turned back? If I could have maybe, but I was loving it too much. I powered down through ruts and ditches and over narrow passes. Had some major washout in one area, was barely wide enough for my truck. The biggest surprise for me though was when I got to the other end and a truck was already there! I didn't see the owner for said vehicle so I couldn't say how long it might have been there. I turned my self around and powered back. This is when I had the closest call. Had to stay on the far left of the narrow road, didn't think I'd manage the huge hole on the right. Well I started up and felt the truck start to slip. This was no good if I got stuck I'd be screwed. I had no means of getting my truck out, none at all. So she was slipping. As soon as I heard the side of the truck slam into dirt I gunned it. Managed to power my way up and out, phew! The rest of the way out was fun but relatively uneventful by comparison. I have simply come to the conclusion that subconsciously I cannot stand having a clean truck.

This is just another tail to add to my list from Little Cedar. The very first time I was ever out there was with my dad and brother. I don't recall the date, but I suspect it was during Easter weekend. We were down visiting My Aunts, Uncles, and cousins. My mom and dad have always been big on outdoors and hiking, especially my dad. I'd wager to say we've hiked near 80% of the trails in Shawnee. Enough background though, my dad had taken my brother and I out to hike the Little Cedar Loop Trail. A small loop about 4mi long. Well it was a great hike, really a beautiful area. I had found myself a walking stick and we were at one of the creek crossings on the south tip of the lake. I decided to use my stick to help me cross on a log, taking a few steps then leaning on the stick. Well all was well till the creek suddenly got a lot deeper. I leaned on the stick and the stick kept looking for the bottom. Needless to say I got wet.

Well that pretty much raps up this weeks scouting report, though we've made some changes to the plan so that may require another trip. We will see...

Eh, it'll be about 5miles

Julie

<-- Billiken

We are always on the look out for poor sucker..... erm, friends that are willing to come hiking with us. This week Jenny and Julie came out with us. Julie is a friend that we met down here at school last year, and Jenny is a friend of Scott, Drew, and DanBo's from High School. She is currently going to school in St. Louis. Silly Billiken.

While our original plan was to hike about 5 miles er so, it just didn't pan out that way. Old fire roads that we considered parking a car on could not be found so we had to fall back on the plan to hike all the way to Bald Knob. While this hike should have only been about 7.5mi, well I already discussed how that ended up longer.

All and all they faired just as well as the rest of us, Julie may even be coming along this next weekend. Thought I'm not sure they'll trust me when I tell them the difficulty and length anymore.

Better knowing us...

Hi. How. Are. Ya.
This will be the first of several installments where you, will get to know us better. Also, get used to the Simpsons' quotes.

Lets start with our Indian spirit guide. Drew, I say spirit instead of trail guide because well... I don't think he has ever looked at the maps for longer than 5min. Of course if he is guiding us via the use of his grand Indian heritage I guess he wouldn't really need to. And for those who have not figured it out yet, I speak of the Native American kind of Indian. Not the kind ol' C Squared thought he found.

Drew is a mysterious being. Many hours he has spent wandering the land. Crossing towns by foot, at hours where it is only him to enjoy the starry silence. I suspect it is because of how he is in touch with the natural world around us that we keep running into strange animals at the ends of our journeys. Perhaps he has known their spirits were there the whole time, he has been following them as they showed us the way to our destination. And once they knew we were safe the rest of us saw them take a more earthly form. Be it of the armadillo of Winter's Pond or The Great White Dog of Bald Knob. Drew has let them guide us safely from trail head to trail head.

As I muse to myself about this, and out loud as it were, I tend to come to the realization that I was right to call him our Spirit Guide. It seems to be synonymous with Trail Guide. He does not need the maps as I do for the Spirits are helping him.

Some Photos

The Group

I'm the map, I'm the map.......

Want more photos? http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2203205&id=37608298&l=b42804e22

This not what I signed up for....

"What's the one where the girls wail on each other?"

"You mean foxy boxing?"

"Yes! Thats what I wanted."

Well as you might guess from that opening quote, we got a bit more than expected today on our hike. We started at an elevation of about 350ft and ended at about 800ft. And we experienced every foot in between. After the initial 1.7mi or so we finally got into the woods and off of roads. So that made for about 12mi till we got in the woods.

What made that first 2 miles especially rough though was the fact that we climbed about 400ft. I was aching by the time we reached the top, my lower back was killing me. But as it leveled out for a while I felt alright. We carried on through the woods with some minor hills on the way till we approached Hutching's Creek. That resulted in down hill to about 450ft. We crossed the creek a few times and hiked along the creek bed for a while. I paid close attention to the map GPS and became concerned. We were making our way too far north. I stopped the group and we back tracked a little bit then went off trail. Cut across the creek for a third and final time and blazed our way through some underbrush till we hit the BMT. The Bridge Man Trail, this is why I wish we had better maps, and some parts of the river to river trail need much better blazes. If I wish to put together a guide once we are done I should really go back and try to find the proper trail. Anyway, we hiked another grueling uphill... and another... and another... well you get the idea. It was rather brutal. We finally managed to get to DanBo's Cappy.

DanBo and I headed back to the minivan and then drove to pick everyone up. We couldn't manage to get everyone in one vehicle like last time. Just too uncomfortable to get 8 people into an old Cappy. So we went back to the trail head and picked everyone up. Got home showered, had dinner, and now we're relaxing. I figured I should get this down right quick and I can give you some photos and fun stories tomorrow.

Cheers

Recon

So currently I am jobless and only taking one course, this naturally results in too much free time. As a result I decided to to a little recon today. Our plan for next Saturday is to hike from winter's pond to a trail head in clear springs. My goal today was to locate that trail head. No luck, but I had a good time. My truck ended up muddy as hell which I love.

I did find the Goodwin trail head which is where we'd be hiking to the next saturday. I think what we'll end up doing is finding where the trail intersects Hutching's Creek Road and hoping we could park somewhere around there.

I'm the map!

Part 1

The first leg we hiked was from Devil's Backbone to Winter's Pond. GPS put the distance at about 9.6 miles. We managed the hike in just under 4 hours. Pretty good time really, had a break for lunch, delicious turkey sandwiches. Well some had ham as well. This part of the trail was all just walking along roads. Saw several trucks along the trail, joked that they were looking to run us out of town. Considered informing the folks of Grand Tower that the cold war was over, We Won!

Overall we the hike was not too eventful. About the only really cool site before the last 2 miles was tower rock. The last 2 miles were rather neat though. As we went down them the bluffs came more into view and we got to take in what we'll be hiking up this next Saturday. We also saw an armadillo... which is just weird and awesome.

Danbo was along for the hike this time around and I'm told that he considering going the whole way with us. Once we got to Winter's Pond we piled into my truck, 4 in the cab with Drew and Danbo riding in the bed. I'm told it was a cold ride back to the van by them. Not sure what they were talking about though, I was nice and warm.

The Crew

Classic Drew

And the Armadillo

Introduction

Well I'd wager it is always best to start with an intro. I'm not much of a writer but I feel that the task we are about to embark on should have some sort of log to it. Myself (Mike) and a group of friends plan on hiking the river to river trail in Southern Illinois. We wont be doing it all at once, school and such you know.

The Group:

Mike (me)

Scott (my brother)

Luke (friend, Kasia's boyfriend)

Kasia (friend, pronounced Ka-sha, Luke's girlfriend)

Drew (friend)

Those are the five that plan on doing every bit of the trail, there will be others that pop in time to time for various sections.