Skylight Cave/Honey Spur Trail

What a beautiful day!  Trees are leafing out and the mountains are dotted with redbud and dogwood in full bloom.  Wildflowers are making their show too!  We had 10 hikers today including a few new hikers.  We are always happy to have more hikers!  The club logged about 6 miles today on the Skylight Cave trail, Honey Spur trail and Lewis Hollow trail in the Cumberland Gap National Park.  Stay tuned, we are heading to Damascus and Grayson Highlands next month!

Cave Springs Hike

Lee Hiking Club kept it close to home today and explored the Cave Springs area.  We arrived to find that the gate still locked although the hiking trails are stated to be open year round.  But we were not deterred; we are a hiking club after all!  So we parked roadside and hiked the half mile to the trailhead.  The weather was darn near perfect, with warm temps even at the beginning of the hike.  We hiked to the cave, the overlook and beyond.  We flushed a turkey off its nest and it took flight across the ravine below us.  The only less than perfect things were the blow downs blocking the trail and some blood thirsty ticks!

High Rock and Bad Branch Falls

Whew!  What a hike!  You ever heard of someone who claimed they went somewhere that was uphill both ways?  Well...this hike was uphill both ways!  We had a climb to the waterfall, which was a really nice falls.  It is about 60 ft. high and it was roaring.  Then we climbed to 2,900 ft to an intersection with Pine Mountain trail, descended to about 2,400 ft and up again to almost 3,000 ft.  The views from High Rock were just spectacular! And the huge expanse of rock was too!  Of course on the hike back we had that 500 ft to climb again, and we were dreading it. LOL!  Really glad we that we did this hike this time of year because it was one snaky looking habitat and we had to navigate among the rocks many times on the trail.  Another hike checked off our list!  Off to Damascus in a couple of weeks!

Bays Mountain

We had a very pleasant hike today!  We seem to be getting lucky with our selection of hike weekends.  It was a calm day with just enough warmth to be perfect for hiking.  The sky was deep blue, and we had great views through the naked trees.  We hiked the Azalea trail to the antennas and then out the ridge to the firetower, where we had lunch.  The trail, except for a few marshy areas, was easily navigable, which was quite nice, especially after having to watch our footing closely on recent hikes. We've gotten off to a great start this year!  Looking forward to many more hikes!

Chadwell Gap to Hensley's Settlement

Wow!  That was a tough hike.  We hiked over 8 miles and were on the trail over 7 hours.  The weather was warm and sunny until we got to the Ridge trail which crosses over into Kentucky on the north side of the mountain.  Up there, the wind fierce and the snow from Tuesday afternoon had not melted.  We hiked in about 6 inches of snow for the last mile, and observed tracks of raccoon, coyote, deer, and......bear.  A big bear it seemed had meandered around Hensley's settlement.  Thankfully we didn't encounter the bear; the tracks looked a couple of days old.  We ate lunch at Hensley's Settlement and didn't tarry long there.  I think all of us were anxious to get back for some southern trail exposure!

Kane Gap Hike

We began the new year with our own First Day hike.  It was a beautiful, sunny day and we logged 6 miles on a logging road. LOL!  Kane Gap is the route Daniel Boone and other early settlers took as they walked toward Cumberland Gap from East Tennessee.  We were joined by three geocacher guests from Wise County and we got lots of helpful information from them concerning some Wise Co. trails.  As we headed back down the logging road, we decided to divert the water from the road, which caused it to be quite muddy and soft.  We stopped three or four times and used a little teamwork to correct the course of the water to the ditch or across the road.  So today we were able to meet some new people, exercise out on the trail, catch up with each other, and perform some trail maintenance.  We ended the day with a little food and chit-chat at the local McD's.  What a fantastic way to start 2014!!

First Day Hike

Lee County Hiking Club is going to join the First Day Hike initiative by hiking to Kane Gap on New Year's Day.  Each state park in Virginia and other state parks across the U.S. are sponsoring First Day Hikes to promote fitness, family outdoor activities, and an appreciation of nature.  Lee County Hiking Club is planning to be at the Daniel Boone Trailhead near Duffield around 10:30 AM on Wednesday, January 1st.  I can't think of a better way to start the New Year!