My first trip:
I drove down early, leaving at about 6:30, arriving at about 8:30. I packed myself a lunch- gorp, a banana, and an apple. Somehow I lose the wrap-tie and spill half the contents all over my car, and onto the dirt road. I was out in the boonies, and enough snow had fallen that you could track somebody. I start thinking...'man, people are going to track my car, steal my battery, and then hunt me down because I spilled the peanuts!'
After reminding myself that I was simply being paranoid, I start hiking. One of the neat things about this area is that there is a lot of old crap lying around, which I took many pictures of. Its funny how rusted out junk looks pretty when it has an inch of snow on it. I cross the river on a manky bridge, being careful because I could easily slip and fall into the river. I keep hiking, looking for cliffs, and places to take pretty photos. I've taken so few photos that I actually had to sit and think about how to load film in the camera.
I bushwhack a good ways, up to several cliffs, and encountered a new joy in rhodo-thrashing: in addition to having to thrash through the stuff, how about snow falling down your back every time you move? Well, at least all the hiking kept me warm. I took two breaks, each for about 15 minutes. I couldn't take any more; it was just too cold to sit still. More thrashing helped me relearn a few things: how to summersault down a hill when you tripped over a tiny root, and how to slide down snow covered logs that save a few steps in the rhodo-fest.
I also scrambled up to the top of a cliff, at one point I jumped across a small chasm, leaping and then grabbing a tree.
Last Sunday Alexis came with me, and we decided to drive down fixer road and hike around. This time there was about 3 inches of snow. We were driving down fixer and noticed some new signs: "Ashland Wildlife management preserve. Foot traffic only." They were all posted over the 'no trespassing' signs. More on that later...
Anyway, eventually we decide to turn around, because the snow was deep enough to keep me from getting back up the big hill. We look at the topo, and decide to drive up 1036, coming up from the south. So we drive past Mt. Olive rock, and look for the road. Looking at the topo I can tell we passed it, so we turn around. Back to mount olive rock. Turn around. We find a nasty, sloppy looking trail that is located where the road should be. We park and decide to ask somebody. I knock on a door, and the guy tells me that the creek is the 'little sinking,' and that we are at the mouth of 'cave hollow.'
So we decide to walk up the trail. It shortly becomes obvious that this is a 4wd only trail. Then it gets worse- you couldn't even get an ATV through that trail without a chainsaw. The hike was more beautiful than anything. Huge, even solid looking, limestone cliffs, some of them 50 or 60 feet tall. Sandstone boulders covered in snow, and a cave that the little sinking comes out of. (The creek goes underground in a few places). After several hours we come to the point where the little and big sinking creek join, and follow the big sinking creek. The road improves, and I can tell that ATV visit quite often, as there a tracks, and trash. At 2:00 pm we turn around, and we get back to the car at 4.
I wanted to see what the other end of the road looked like, so we drive in the north side of 1036, and pass Hampton's wall, the road turns to dirt. Unfortunately we had to turn around, the snow was heavy. We stopped at a place were the road forks, to the right is a hill, to the left is a narrow road, with two white striped posts on the side.
That, I guess, is the end of the story. It was really fun to spend the days just exploring, and was a nice change of pace-
