Knobstone Trail Hike

I decided to hike the Knobstone trail in order to get a little backpacking experience under my belt before I embark on my Pacific Crest Trail adventure. It was actually my girlfriend Savannah's idea. Neither of us had been on an overnight backpacking trip before, so a three night trip on the rugged Knobstone trail was sure to be an adventure.

The Knobstone Trail is a 48-58 mile backpacking trail that is located in southern Indiana. One end of the trail has a figure 8 style loop which adds the extra 10 miles to bring it to a 58 total mile trail. Savannah and I decided to forgo the extra loops and just hike straight out to the end, 48 miles. The trail runs along the Knobstone escarpment, which basically means that it is 48 miles of evil hills. I know what you are thinking, hills in Indiana? Well its true, over the course of the trail you will climb a steep 400 foot hill only to go right down the other side, and then another hill and another. The trail has often been described as rugged and very difficult, and I can confirm this. Many hikers use this trail to train for thru-hiking the Appalachian trail.

This little adventure took a little planning. First of all, it is a one way trail and not a loop, this means I have to park my car at one end, hike the trail, and then figure out how to get back to my car. Luckily, there are a couple shuttle services that are offered to transport backpackers to and from the trail. I used the shuttle provided by Go Deep Adventures (http://www.go-deepadventures.com/). The plan was to park my car at the north side of the trail at Delaney State Park, then take the shuttle to the southern trail-head at Deam Lake. Another logistical issue was water, according to all reports the trail was bone dry. Fortunately, the gentleman driving the shuttle also helped you drop off water caches as well. There are several different trail-heads all along the trail that divide it into sections. This makes it easy to section hike, as well as cache water. I dropped three water caches, one at New Chapel trail-head (mile 17), Leota trail-head (mile 26), and Oxley Memorial trail-head (mile 38).

Day 1

So the plan was to leave bright and early Saturday morning so Savannah and I could make the 5 hour drive to the trail-head to park the car before noon, drop off our water, and take the shuttle to the other end by 1. That way we could get a good start on the trail for our first half day and we would only have to hike a couple miles on the last day. We managed to get up and hit the road by 7, so the day started out according to plan. Then traffic happened. We got stuck in traffic for an hour and a half, so that 5 hour drive turned into nearly 7 hours. The worst part about this was that I told the shuttle driver to meet me at the trail-head at noon, but didn't show up until 1:30. I felt really bad for wasting the guys time, but he didn't seem to mind. He was a really nice guy, and knew everything there was about the trail and the surrounding area.

The process of dropping off 3 water caches and getting to the other side of the trail took longer than we expected, about 2 hours. So we didn't start the trail until 3:30, two and a half hours later than we had planned. So much for hiking 10 miles on day one. Luckily, the first few miles of the trail were pretty easy, so we made pretty good time. The first mile or so of the trail was shared with a horse trail, so it was nice and wide and pretty flat. Our first encounter with wild life came shortly after the first mile when I almost stepped on a little green snake. I thought it was just a plant at first, but then I caught it wiggle out of the corner of my eye.

After the trail separated from the horse trail, it started to get a little more intense. The hills started rolling and the trail got pretty steep at times, but I wasn't convinced of the so-called "ruggedness" of this trail yet. No, that would come on day 2. We hit mile marker 4 around 5:30ish and decided to take a quick water break. We decided to stop and make camp at the next good spot we came across, since it was October, the sun was starting to set earlier and we wanted to set up camp before dark. We made it about another mile before finding a nice little established campsite on the top of a ridge. There we set up camp and cooked some noodles and tuna on my little pocket rocket stove. We both slept pretty good despite neither of us having a sleeping pad.

Day 2

We woke up at about 8ish, got everything packed up and were ready to go at 9. Today was our first real day of hiking. We had 12 miles to go until our first water drop, and we still had about 2 liters of water. Since we had camped at the top of one of the knobs (get it... knobstone?) the trail immediately descended in a rather steep fashion. Within a couple minutes we hit mile marker 5, this began the section of the trail that went through a tornado damage area. It lasted a couple miles and may have been one of the prettiest parts of the trail, only because it was clear of all trees and once you got to the top of whats called the round knob, you could see all around for miles. 

This was a tough part of the trail though, since there were no trees in the area, there were no places to put the white blazes that marked the trail. This wasn't an issue until mile 7. At this point we were hiking up a pretty steep hill, and had missed the small trail sign, that was mostly covered up by brush, that told us to go right. Instead, we continued to climb to the top of the hill. When we got to the top of the hill we were pretty confused because there was no obvious sign of the trail. Eventually we found a small logging road (that was not on the map) and decided to follow it and hope that we were on the right path. At the time it seemed like the only viable option. After walking for a while with no sign of the trail, we decided to retrace our steps until we found the last blaze we had past. We headed all the way back down the hill, this was when we finally found the small hidden sign pointing us in the right direction. While we were relieved to be back on the trail, we had wasted about an hour in this little turnaround. We knew we still had 10 miles to go before new water, and we were starting to get a little nervous.

The hills in this section of the trail seemed particularly intense. I think that was mostly because we were starting to get dehydrated. We would stop every 2 miles to take a quick water break, in an attempt to stay hydrated and conserve water. Despite running dangerously low on water, we had a bigger fear other than dehydration. ACORNS! I'm not talking about your run of the mill acorns, these bad boys were monstrous! We had to stay constantly vigilant because at any moment a golf ball sized acorn would come crashing through the trees. I got hit in the head once and had many other close calls. Not only were they a falling hazard, but they littered the trail and made it extremely dangerous to climb and descend all of the steep hills. Imagine trying to climb a steep staircase with no handrails, and is covered in marbles! That was basically what it was like.

So we hit mile twelve and at this point I was pretty sure that we would end up face down in a ditch somewhere. We were both so dehydrated and only had a few sips of water left with 5 miles to go until the first water cache. If there is anything you need to know about me, its that I sweat a lot! I am not terribly out of shape, but I just sweat like crazy, so needless to say I was losing a lot of sweat on this hike. I was starting to feel pretty lightheaded and dizzy, you know basically heading into the danger-zone of dehydration. Then a miracle happened. We found a small creek bed that was not completely dry! Never have I been so happy to see a muddy little puddle before. What I said before was totally true, there was hardly a drop of water on this trail. There was a creek bed at the bottom of every hill, and every one of them was dry. So when we found this small puddle of water, we dropped to our knees. I used my Sawyer mini to filter some the water into our bottles and we decided to stop and have lunch. That muddy water was, hands down, the best water I have ever had in my life! We refueled with some bagels and peanut butter and a granola bar, filled all our water bottles up and were ready to move on.

After eating lunch, our next goal was to hit the New Chapel trail-head in 5 miles, which was our first water drop. We were making good time now that we were hydrated and refueled. Then we hit our first trail reroute. There were several sections of the trail that were rerouted due to logging activity, and they turned out to be a major pain in the ass. The first one was around mile 14, there was a sign in the middle of the trail with a very vague map that did not match up with the map that I had. So we followed the new trail and it lead us to a dirt road. As we followed the dirt road we saw several white blazes on telephone poles, so we knew we were going in the right direction. Somewhere along this road we missed the part where the trail left the road and went back into the woods, none of this was well marked at all. We took out our map and tried to figure out what the hell to do. The dirt road ended on a pretty busy county road just ahead, so instead of wasting our time backtracking we just walked up to the paved road and decided to follow it. According to the map, about 2 miles up this road was the road to the New Chapel trail-head. Lucky for us, the map was actually right! After a few miles of dodging cars on this busy road we finally made it to the New Chapel trail-head. We enjoyed our fresh water, had a few snacks, and decided to push on.

We made it about 2 more miles before finding a nice little campsite at mile 19. The sun was starting to go down and we had a pretty long day, so we decided to stop here for the night and make some dinner. Finding a campsite on this trail turned out to be a little stressful. The park officials request that you camp at existing campsites, in order to preserve the integrity of the trail. Well we didn't have much of an option with this trail. Aside from the preexisting campsites, there was really no good spot to camp. The terrain was either too steep or covered in pricker bushes. Each night we had to make a decision when we passed a campsite whether or not to stop there or to take the risk and hope we found another spot before dark. It never turned out to be an issue, we seemed to find a spot right when we needed to, but it was pretty stressful at the time.

Day 3

There is something about waking up in the woods on a beautiful Monday morning, not having to go to work that is so relaxing. It was a little on the chilly side to start the day out, but we quickly warmed up after walking for a few minutes. Our next goal was to make it to our next water drop at the Leota trail-head at mile 26. The first mile or so turned out to be pretty flat, which was a nice way to start the morning. I let Savannah lead the way, I told her it was because I wanted her to set the pace, but the real reason was so she would walk through all the spider webs that went across the trail so I didn't have to! (hehe) She turned out to be one hell of a fast walker though, I had a hard time keeping up with her most of the time! 

The last mile before Leota was a killer. By the time we hit mile 25 we were ready for a break, but we decided to push on and take our lunch break at Leota. After mile 25 the trail started a steep climb, no switchbacks, just straight up the hill. There were some wooden planks that were meant to act as stairs, but they were almost completely worn out. All that was left of them was the big metal stake sticking out of the ground. This was about par for the course for this trail, it was not well maintained at all. By the time we made it to the top of the hill we were ready to collapse. We reached the trail head and I hobbled through the prickers to retrieve our fresh water stash, and we both sprawled out on the ground cloth and took a nice long lunch break. 

Our next stop that day was at a lake by Elk Creek trail-head at mile 32. By the time we got to the lake we were pretty whooped, but we knew we needed to push on so that we didn't have to hike all day tomorrow. We took a quick break at the lake to refill our water bottles, and I got to use my sawyer filter for the first time. The lake water tasted like dirt, but it was damn good dirt.

When we left the lake, the sun was slowly making its way down the horizon. We made it another two miles before we decided to camp. They were the longest two miles of the trip. We were so tired, I was literally dragging my feet. We crawled to the top of the last knob of the day and found the perfect camp spot for the night. It was a nice little grassy knoll just big enough for the tent. I set up the tent as Savannah cooked our noodles. We enjoyed our Knorr Alfredo on a cozy little log. Did I mention that we forgot to bring utensils? I totally forgot to pack a fork or spoon, so the whole trip we ended up using a ziplok bag like a glove and just eating noodles and rice out of our hands. Pretty savage. After a quick dinner we got in the tent and fell fast asleep. I think we both slept pretty well that night, despite being on the cold hard ground.

Day 4

The final day. We had roughly 14 miles to go. We woke up at 7:00 so we could get an earlier start. Originally, we only wanted to do 4 or 5 miles on our last day, but due to our late start we had some serious miles to cover our last day. Luckily for us they turned out to be pretty easy, for the most part. The first few miles were pretty hilly. We made it to our final water drop at Oxley Memorial trail-head (mile 38) around lunchtime, so we had a quick lunch. The final 8 miles of the trail were pretty relaxing and flat. It would have been pretty enjoyable if not for the annoying blisters forming on my feet.

The final trail-head was at Delaney Park, which is where my car was parked. The last section of trail was a series of loops, which gave you the opportunity to add up to 10 miles to the trail. We chose to take the most direct route to the car, ending our journey at 48 miles. We knew we were close when we saw Delaney Lake. Then just like that we saw my red car shining through the trees like a great victorious beacon. We couldn't help hobbling/jogging the final 100 meters to the car, but in our minds we were sprinting across the finish line. 

After taking a nice break, and spending some quality time on a real toilet, we decided it was time to head back to reality. So we went directly to the nearest McDonald's and smashed some quarter pounders and large fries. Then we went home. It was a long, hard trail, but it was so worth it. The only casualty was Savannah's toenail. RIP Savannah's toenail.

Delaney Lake

One of the only non dry creek beds on the trail.