Ladders, Bridges, and Ravines: Turkey Run and Shades State Parks

I cannot even begin to describe how much I loved these hikes. Right here in Indiana, which you think of as flat and corn fields as far as the eye can see, you've got these two gems. 

We hiked an absurd amount, and I can't believe the kids and Hank held up for it. It's an hour drive from our house, so we geared up, and hit Turkey Run first. 

We started with trails 6, 7, and 11 as a warm-up hike. The kids were super excited when they realized we would be hiking through a ravine and a mostly dried up creek, jumping back and forth over the water. They also very much enjoyed the stairs and the little lookout spot. 

We then combined trails 1, 3, 5, and 10 to create a very wobbly loop around--and we even split up at some points because...

Ladders! Yes! We had to climb ladders! I! Love! This! Hike! What's not to love? Hiking through ravines, along creeks, through creeks, up ladders, past waterfalls, over a freaking suspension bridge... It was The Best. 

Alas, Hank could not hike up a ladder, so we took turns finding an alternate route with Hank, while the other person climbed with the kids. 

After that, which was a solid 5 miles at that point, we headed out to go home except WHOOPS maybe not, we decided to really quick go over to Shades State Park, which is only 15 minutes from Turkey Run. Because we are bananas, we then went on ANOTHER hike of trails 1 and 4, adding on 2 miles. 

JD passed out in the car on the ride back, and I am pretty sure EJ did too. Hank had only been with us for a week at that point, but he seemed thrilled with the entire thing.

Honestly, some of my favorite hiking. It was just wonderful. It was very easy to choose your own adventure--you could keep it easy, or you could make a really hard hike out of it. It's pretty critical here to have good hiking boots or shoes, because you're often doing some light rock scrambling, and the rocks can be slick. I saw more than one person wearing flip flops with blood running down their leg from a fall. 

Some of this was on the edge of JD's abilities--not because he couldn't do it, because he's a climber and loves danger, but because I needed him to listen and do as I said, when I said it. That's a harder skill for him, and he has not yet learned to assess the best path to take, so there were points where I needed to be behind him for safety (the ladders) but I knew when we got up the ladders, it was slick and he needed to choose carefully where to step. Luckily, EJ is quite excellent at finding the best path to take, so she went ahead and assessed things for us while we brought up the rear. 

Anyway, the kids loved it and were already asking to go back.

Travel Planning: Return to Rocky Mountain

Fingers crossed, universe willing, I will be back in the home of my soul, Rocky Mountain National Park, this fall or winter--other events depending. Even better (in some ways, though not all), this will be an ADULTS ONLY trip. That means the only limits we have are our own! We've got some tentative plans outlined, so here they are.

Stay--Part of the reason we are heading out there is because JK will be doing a guest lecture at a university in Colorado. So, part of our stay will be at least a night near the campus. After that, we will head to RMNP. The FUN (for me) part of the plan is to stay at YMCA of the Rockies. It's our favorite area of town to stay in, and I've seen the campus but not stayed there yet. I'm so excited to try it out. 

Hikes--any and all of these always depend on trail closures, road closures, weather, etc. Some are new hikes; some are favorites revisited. Although I really wanted to dig into the Grand Lake side of things, as far as trails went, many of the trails are still closed in order to let the ecosystems recover from the fires. It's going to depend on when we actually go--if it's dead of winter, some of these are going to be terrible ideas or even inaccessible. If it's fall, we can totally do it.

1. Moraine Park Loop--a starting hike, since its got very little elevation change. It'll be a nice starting hike. Technically an out and back trail, you can do it as a loop if you use the road. It's around 5 miles, and has only about 200 feet of elevation change. We can access this from YMCA of the Rockies--no car needed.
2. Sprague Lake from YMCA of the Rockies campus--again, fairly easy on the elevation gain, with only 600 ft of elevation gain. I can and do hike that in Indiana, and I've already hiked the hardest part of this trail.
3. Lake Haiyaha--this is a nice moderate option. 800 ft of elevation gain to see a real stunner of a lake. 
4. Lilly Mountain (This is in Theodore Roosevelt National Forest!)--I feel confident we could do this hike, and that it wouldn't be a stretch.  1200 feet of elevation gain and a peak elevation of 9800 ft. 
5. Twin Sisters Peak--if I am going to make a go of it on a hard stretch hike, it's this one. I really want to do it. 2500 ft. elevation gain, 7.5 miles. I would feel really confident doing it if I had more time to adjust to altitude, but since I know I won't, I want to try this, and be prepared to turn back if needed. It would be my first summit over 11,000 ft (though I know I can be as high as 12,000 without altitude sickness, given my recent tests of it)
6. Gianttrack Mountain (with possible stopping points at the earlier summits)--this one is maygbe a more moderate stretch, for distance and elevation gain (2800ft gain), though it tops out around 9500 ft for a peak elevation. That might make it easier than Twin Sisters.
7. Estes Cone--if I don't think I can do Twin Sisters, then this is my next choice. 2500 ft elevation gain and about 7 miles--I've done part of this trail before, so I feel like I might have a better shot at it. It's also just over 11,000 feet.
8. Sky Pond--this is a bucket list hike for me. 9 miles and 1700 ft of elevation gain, with a peak elevation of almost 11,000 ft. This would be an all day hike for us, starting early. 
9. Shelf Lake and Solitude Lake--my other bucket list lake hikes. 9 miles and 2200 ft of elevation gain, with a peak elevation of 11,500. This might be out of range for us on this trip.
10. A third lake bucket list hike is Chasm Lake, 9 miles, and 2500 ft of elevation gain. 
11. Ute trail--I want to hike at least part of this. I think it would be ideal for the point to point hike we want to do. 
12. Old Fall River Road--who wouldn't want to hike this when its closed to car traffic?!?

Some of these are absolutely hard hikes (for us flatlanders), so we would have to make a whole day of it, while also being aware that being above the treeline in the afternoon is generally a bad call. I also, as always, have to play my tendency towards altitude sickness by ear, and perhaps have to grudgingly acknowledge the fact that because this is a shorter trip, I won't have the amount of time I prefer to acclimate. We are also considering each parent having a day to themselves to go on a guided hike that's way more difficult, and the other parent stays with kiddos. 

We are hoping to maybe manage some big hikes by making them point to point instead of out and back, and seeing if we can utilize a local transport service for a pickup or a drop off. 

Other "to do" items are dependent on time of year. Maybe a fall or winter market; maybe a ranger program; maybe a climbing lesson. 

Lawrence Creek Trail - Fort Harrison State Park

We did one of our (the adults) favorite trails in Fort Harrison--Lawrence Creek. It's a mixed use trail, for hikers and mountain bikers. Part of why it's such a great trail is because of the mountain bikers--all the obstacles they set or leave for them also make great things for the kids to do too. Rocks, downed trees turned into wide balance beams or jumps, log mountains, curves, and more--it's a fun one to do. 

Here's Lawrence Creek Trail on All Trails. 

It's 4.5 miles, but we tacked on just a bit more to make it an even 5 miles. This was the longest single trail hike the kids have been on, so I was thrilled with their accomplishment. We've stacked hikes before--3 miles with 4 miles, etc.--but that usually involves a sitdown break and change of scenery. This was just, get on the trial and go, don't stop style, and they aced it. 

5 miles of hiking = 1 tired puppy. Hank did great on this hike, though he's got some leash learning to do. 

Indiana Dunes State and National Parks Picture Post

Our trip to Indiana Dunes was both delightful and frustrating--we were foiled by the weather, but we can't wait to go back.

It rained and sleeted the entire time we were there. It was always meant to be just a short trip--there in the early afternoon, hike, stay the night, get up and hike again, then head home. We saw the bad weather forecast, but at that point, we were stuck with the dates we had picked, and decided to just go and have as much fun as we could. 

We did indeed have fun--but it was wet, cold fun, and shorter than we would have liked. We heavily leaned on the visitors center, which was excellent. The informational videos were wonderful, the kids were engaged, and the ranger was just delighted that we were full of questions. 

We did short burst hikes around the dunes in both parks before we got totally soaked and frozen (this was back in March!) and had to call it. 

Picture Post: Canyonlands

If I had to pick one park from our Arches and Canyonlands trip, I would pick Canyonlands. The pictures at Arches were easy to take; the park speaks for itself. It's so hard to capture the vast beauty of Canyonlands on camera. It was stunning, and my tiny taste was not enough. I want more. 

You see this sign and then you keep driving and driving and driving...

Part of Shafer Trail--where you can drive your Jeep down that scary ass road. Yes, please, and thank you, I'll be doing that next time. 

Shafer Trail

Shafer Trail, look, it was just very cool, alright?

Most of my pictures are from the Grand View Point Trail. It was an easy hike, which we definitely needed at that point in our day.

In recent years, I've developed a bit of vertigo when getting close to cliff edges. I'm not afraid, but I do get dizzy. Rather than letting this hold me back, I've taken to getting on my butt to get out to the edge.

It's just canyons, as far as your eyes can see. It's amazing.

I loved this view so much, I did it twice with two different camera lenses.

Same spot on Grand View Point Trail, different camera lens.

This doesn't even really capture the gorgeous color of it all.

And it is SUCH a drop, just RIGHT THERE.

My sister is terrified of heights but I convinced her this would be an amazing picture and she would thank me later. I think she was swearing at me during this picture.

We stopped other places but I honestly don't know what I did with my pictures? I think I may not have offloaded them from my camera. Here, have another picture from Grand View Point Trail.

Updates

Well, that was an unexpected break, but so it goes. 

We continued to struggle after the loss of Finn. The kids, as kids do, asked if we would get another dog, but my heart was not in it. We told them that if the right dog showed up, we would know. 

The universe took my deflection as an invitation, and a rescue organization contacted us about Hank.

Hank is a fifteen month old golden retriever, similar in age and coloring to our sweet boy. Hank is a rescue, coming out of a bad situation. He's a sweet good boy, and has been with us for two weeks now. He needs love and attention and some medical help, and we've got those to give. He's been on his first family hiking excursion, and had a blast. 

Hiking updates: We've been hiking at Fort Ben mostly, but we also did a great side trip to Turkey Run and Shades State Parks. Our Acadia Trip is planned and finalized, so I am excited to share more about that. We had a lake vacation with some hiking and biking, and a trip to Buffalo with a nice easy hike through a local park. Hank and I are doing a couch to 5K challenge.