Peter and I have been taking advantage of the beautiful scenery as often as possible and have set a goal to go on at least two hikes per month during the spring and summer. We have discovered some truly lovely places and look forward to visitors as now we have even more places to show off. Tory, Jenny, Dottie, Shelle....I'm lookin' at you ladies!!!
One of our favorite trails is a section of the Perimeter Trail that starts at Morgan's Steep and ends at the Memorial Cross.
Morgan's Steep is also a prime spot to watch the sunset, BTW. We have done this hike twice now and the following photos are from both of these walks. The trail starts by following a fairly steep stone staircase to a short path to a creek and waterfall.
The trail continues on, around the creek and under the edge of the Cumberland Plateau. It's very rocky and offers several places to leave the trail and climb up for pretty views or meander down to the creek.
This trail even offers a tiny bit of real rock climbing to get thru a carved out tunnel called Proctor's Hall.
Both times we have done this trail there has been a good bit of ice. Today there were long sections where we really had to watch our steps because the trail was still iced over.
We look forward to seeing this trail in the spring. We saw several plants today that were starting to bud already.
Another trail we recently tried starts at the Memorial Cross and continues on the Perimeter Trail. It has some of THE MOST AMAZING views. It starts at the Cross, which on an ugly day is still just breath-taking.
It continues on and has ample places to pause to enjoy the view or even spread out a nice picnic.
We left the trail quite a bit to explore. One of the coolest features on this trail is a big boulder with Liesegang banding. Liesegang banding is a gemetric design that occurs naturally when iron deposits from water seep through sandstone. It looks almost like tire tracks in the rock. Very cool.
There is a creek that cuts across this trail too.
I'm a sucker for water in pretty much any form, so we spent a lot of time around it. On this particular day I was feeling especially goofy....
We look forward to hiking many more of the trails around campus, however we like these two so much that it's hard for us to try new ones! Peter has not explored the caves yet at Thumping Dick Hollow and we have heard good things about a place called Solomon's Temple, so maybe those two will be our March hikes. Come visit and we'll be glad to take you along with us!
Remy says, "Sign him up!"
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