New Chapel Trail Head to Mile Marker 29 and back on the Knobstone Trail, Easter 2006

Summary: Our group included Branson Rogers, Ryan Dunigan, and Jace Ruby. We went down to the Knobstone Trail, starting at New Chapel Trail Head. We hiked 8 miles in on Friday then set up camp. On Saturday we felt ambitious so we hiked 16 ½ miles to avoid hiking much Sunday morning. We had a devotional on Sunday morning for Easter then packed up camp and hiked the last ½ mile to the car and headed out. We stopped off at Ryan’s house to shower up and then hit up the all you can eat pizza buffet in his town, and it was BEAUTIFUL!

Our Trail: We hiked the Knobstone Trail in southern Indiana. It was a beautiful trail, and we would advise future hikers to check it out. We started at New Chapel Trail Head, which is about a half mile from mile 17 and hiked to mile 29, only to turn around and hike back. The trail is marked every mile, although a few of the miles seem to be fairly long. There were also white blazes on trees every hundred yards or so. Just watch out for double blazes, those mean turns, so make sure you know which way you are supposed to go.

Our Group's Advice:

1. Take a map! A topography map would be especially nice. We did not take a map, hoping that we could buy one when we got there, only to find out the office was closed on Good Friday.
2. Make sure to stretch well at the end of day! We lived by this philosophy and it helped out tremendously.
3. Practice putting up your tarp before you go. We had some trouble the first night, thankfully the weather cooperated, and nobody got wet. The second night was a little better, but Branson got wet anyway!
4. Use Sneakers! Even if you insist on wearing boots, as we all did, take them anyway it is worth the weight.
5. Don’t take a break right before an uphill climb. Breaks are nice, but afterwards it takes your legs a little while to get going again. This is not a fun period of time if you are climbing a hill, besides the break at the top of a hill is something worth working for.
6. Take a watch! This came in handy for the mornings. We wanted to make sure we got an early start. It also came in handy for keeping our progress. Jace and Ryan hiked one mile in ten minutes! Talk about a confidence booster!
7. Take a cell phone! On the Knobstone Ryan used his cell phone to call home for weather reports. It was nice to know what we were expecting, because you never know with Indiana weather!
8. Don’t bother with taking a sleeping pad. Branson took one, but Jace and Ryan did not. We all slept about the same!
9. Make sure you have a pack that fits you well! Branson’s pack just about killed him!
10. For first timers, we recommend no more than 12 miles in one day. We hiked 8 on the first and 16 ½ on the second. We barely had the energy to set up camp Saturday night.

Previous Hiking Experience: I have never backpacked! I have taken day hikes quite a bit, mainly to mushroom hunt every spring, but never was I carrying a pack. I had also never camped out on a trail like this, using tarps that is.

What I Learned:

• STAY POSITIVE! This is all about mental toughness. There were times when I was tired, but I never gave into it and I pushed myself to new limits. It was an amazing experience!
• Check the weather! Branson and I made our first attempt and got caught in a nasty thunderstorm and probably should have been struck by lightning. Needless to say we were chased off the trail by some nasty weather, but that didn’t hold us back from tackling it the next week.
• Sneakers are better than boots. Ok I admit it, I was set on wearing my hiking boots that I always wear, but just incase I strapped my sneakers to the top of my pack. Boy am I glad I did that, I finally made the switch mid-day Saturday, after realizing that my boots were giving me shin splints.
• Make sure you can set up a decent tarp to sleep under. The first night we set ours up, we slept with the tarp in our face. I actually wore my Cubs hat to keep the tarp from hitting my face.
• I will pack a lot less food next time. I didn’t eat nearly as much as I thought I would.

Memories:

This trip was not one that will be easily forgotten. It was a great experience being out on the trail with Jace and Branson. One of the best things we did was take a pocket size Bible. We read scripture around the fire on Friday night, and had an Easter service of our own in the wilderness. It was incredible! I will also never forget wiping out the all you can eat pizza buffet in my home town on Sunday.

Kudos:

I want to give major Kudos to Branson. Even when his mind and body were telling him to stop with four miles to go, he changed out of his boots into his sandals and finished the 16-½ mile day. Not bad for some one who doesn’t exercise on a regular basis. Great Job Branson!

I would also like to give props to Jace. If he hadn’t have been there I am not sure we would have made it. His perseverance and confidence pushed us all to our limits and then beyond.

Conclusion

All in all, this trip was an amazing experience! We had a great time! I know that we are already planning another trip for next year. We learned many things on this trip and it was especially nice to get in touch with nature.

Previous Hiking Experience:

I have gone on one backpacking trip two years ago in the Mission mountains in Montana, however, with that trip it was five days and not too fast of a pace. I have also gone on a few day trips here and there, and walking around at home is a hike in itself at times as it may be half a mile of walking between one place and another.

What I Learned:

• I learned that I did not have near the endurance that I thought that I did. In the summers I usually have a fairly good endurance from working on the farm, but as it is coming to the end of the second semester it had been a while since I had done much physical activity that needs endurance. I am going to be working on that next year, that is for sure.
• I also learned that it is really important to have a topography map for your psychological wellbeing, as you will not be surprised when as you are hiking a ridge suddenly crosses a valley. If I had a map it would not have been such a downer.
• I became convinced of the value of sandals. I had brought a pair so that I could use them at the campsites as they are lighter, but on Saturday with 4 miles left to camp I was nearly done in, when I switched to sandals away from my hiking boots and suddenly I had much more energy.
• I found out that with the sleeping pad that I used, which is the cheapest one, there is really no difference between the hard ground and sleeping on that pad. Waste of weight.
• I also found out how different an internal frame pack and an external frame pack can be, the other two had external frame packs that had their lowest weight beginning around their mid back level, while on my pack most of my weight was already below that. This meant that off my belt strap I had several pounds that were not in an optimal position. I would have gotten along so much better if my pack had been designed to store the weight higher up on my back.

Memories:

I cannot forget that first tarp setup where it was so low that the only positions that I could sleep were on my stomach or on my back. Even then I was still touching the tarp. Another would be when Jace said that we would not be seeing anyone on the trail, and suddenly not more than 10 minutes later a couple with 2 small dogs walked by going in the opposite direction. (They were the only people we saw the entire trip and we over took them on our way back) Finally, there were some great views from the tops of those ridges where the trees died down and let us look at the valley. It was great to be far away from other people for a short time.

Kudos:

I am really glad that Jace was able to go with us, even though it was at the last minute, because he was our trend setter. Without him we would not have been able to push on as well as we did. He had one of the brightest outlooks of the three of us, and usually kept plugging right along.

Ryan was a great guy to have along, because he was very confident the entire way and was a great encouragement to me when I was getting tired on that Saturday. I felt exhausted by mile marker 29 and we went 12 more miles that day. I would not have been able to do it without these two guys with me.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed our trip and I realize that it would have been much more enjoyable if we had not decided to push so hard on that second day. One thing is for sure, I will make sure to be in better shape the next time around, and perhaps I will have a better pack too.

Now that that is done, let us tell you about what happened on our first try, the weekend before easter.

-As narrated by Ryan

(please note, if you hold your mouse over the images they will expand

Branson and I arrived at the New Chapel Trail Head around 6:00 . We knew that we were in for a weekend of rain, but we had no idea what was in store for us in the next three ours. We started out hike with high spirits, and lots of ambition. About a mile into the trail it started to rain. Branson immediately whipped out this amazing rain gear, including a sweet jacket and pants. Where I had forgotten my rain jacket, I simply improvised by using a small trash bag. That worked for about ten minutes. This is when it really started to come down. We just laughed and carried on. We decided it was time to camp when the temperature started to drop. This was two miles in the trail. The only thing was that we were at the top of a ridge. We quickly put a lean-to style tent together , only to see lightning strike the ridge across from us, this is also about the time it started hailing. Then lightning struck the same ridge we were on, about 75 yards from where we were standing. Branson and I decided to run downhill which was about a mile back down the trail, and when I say run I mean all out sprint. By the time we had gotten downhill the storm had died off. We walked back to camp, soaking wet, and I was freezing cold. When we got back we packed up camp and decided that my blue hands meant we needed to head back to the car and try again another day. We started our trek back only to find that the trail had turned into a stream and the stream had turned into a torrent! By this time we were using headlamps to make our way down the trail and we had to find a way across the stream because the current looked too strong to walk across. We found a large tree that had fallen so we scooted down it to cross . We then discovered our only way out was to climb a hill that was about an 80-degree slope, keep in mind it had rained quite a bit, so the hill was very slick . Once we got to the top of the hill it was a short walk back to the car, and a long drive back to the dorm. This was an account of our first attempt at the Knobstone Trail.