2020 Winter Camping Trip Day4: Mammoth Cave National Park

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day4, 2020/11/29

This day we toured Mammoth Cave. Mammoth Cave National Park doesn't charge an entrance fee, but you need to buy a ticket to go into caves. Since caves is the main activity in Mammoth Cave National Park, that kind of makes sense, however, people who have National Park pass don't get any advantages. We have a pass, so we were a bit frowning faces. 

Our ticket was 9:15 a.m., which is the first group of the day. Every 15 minutes, another group comes in. Face coverings are required and most people followed social distancing. Since Mammoth Cave is indeed big, I felt safe. 

Mammoth Cave is huge as the name indicates. So far 365 miles/587 km is surveyed, but geologists think it would be total 600 miles/966 km! Inside the cave is quite spacious and big: I was surprised how big it was, because my image of "cave" is very narrow. The cave tour is only 2 miles, but there are a lot to see and it was really interesting. 

Interesting point is not just its large size. Firstly, it is interesting geologically. Water is a key! Limestone underlies the Mammoth Cave, and s little acidic ground water keeps making limestone dissociated. This way cave is formed. Water is important for the ecosystem in the cave. Actually there are many animals living in the cave. Some animals adapted in the dark environment, such as eyeless cavefish or cave crayfish. They don't have pigments. 

Secondly, history is interesting. 4000 years ago to 2000 years ago, there is proof that Native Americans used the cave. They gathered and used minerals from cave, although it is not clear what the purpose was. It might be medicine? Also the ranger said that there are some petroglyphs. They might use the cave for certain ceremonies, but that is one hypothesis. When they collected minerals, they used mussels shells to scrape rocks. For the light they used torch with log bundles that lasted about 45 minutes. It is a big mystery that why suddenly the cave use was stopped 2000 years ago. Taboo or something? Then the cave was "re"discovered in 1798.

Upon rediscovery, the cave was a place to make gunpowder by enslaved workers for War of 1812. After war was over, the cave got famous and people started visiting. Later in 1926 Mammoth Cave was authorized as a national park. 

Entrance

Inside the Mammoth Cave 

 

Christmas tree in the cave

The entrance (left above). Unexpectedly inside the cave was quite dry and only water I saw was this dripping at the the entrance. 

Inside is quite large, wind and high ceiling as shown in the above right picture. For tour hours there are minimal lights are on. For walking, the nice path is created and easier to walk.                                                                                                 
There are large open area in the cave after about 0.5 mile from entrance, and rangers put a Christmas tree there. In front of the tree a ranger was standing and greeting people and explaining about cave and answering questions. Not only there but every 0.3 mile a ranger was standing and explained stuff and answered questions. They had masks and people made social distances with them.

gunpowder production

Interestingly a lot of stuff from past activities remained as they are.  The left picture is some equipment to make gunpowder. Oxen carried things from outside into the cave and mixed with mineral from cave rocks. Then, interestingly, that was mixed with ox blood.

 

 

log pipe

Enslaved workers hollowed logs and made a long pipe. Water at the entrance was carried via log into the cave at the gunpowder production site. You can see in the picture hollowed log is sharpened at the edge and connected to the next hollowed log to make a long pipe. How could humans hollow such long log? I asked a standing ranger, but she didn't understand my English. Then Mr.N asked the question for me. The ranger said it was hollowed by hands. I don't think so! The logs are longer than hands! I believe that she didn't know the answer. 

Another interesting purpose of cave usage was Tuberculosis patients stayed here in the cave. In the past TB cause was not known as bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and some people thought this cave environment helps healing it. Obviously no for the current knowledge. At that time patients were talking with visitors (by that time cave was an attraction to visit), and they didn't follow social distancing practice. As a result some cave visitors got TB. It was a bit funny since social distancing is a timely topic. 

Inside the cave

Cave and path

I learned a lot about Mammoth cave! Due to COVID, only the biggest cave was open, but next time I am interested in touring more caves. 

After we toured the Mammoth Cave, we hiked around a little. In the Mammoth Cave National Park, of course caves are the main attraction, but hiking trails are also offered. We hiked a couple of miles and checked out the Whites Cave. Actually really small caves are everywhere along the hiking trails. Whites Cave was very small and it is not walkable (can't even enter, entrance is too small). So we just looked inside by using phone light. 

It was fun!

To be continued...

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day3

 2020 Winter Camping Trip Day3, 2020/11/28

This day we drove to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. 

What I knew about Kentucky was, only Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). Believe or not, KFC is very popular in Japan, especially for Christmas season food. People like to buy KFC for Christmas food. Although vast majority of Japanese are not religious, KFC is successfully advertising their chicken as a Christmas food. In the TV commercial in Japan, Colonel Sanders is giving chickens to children. You Americans might be surprised, but I need to mention here is that Japanese KFC tastes really different from American KFC. First time I had American KFC I thought that chickens are super greasy.

We entered the different time zone, so we arrived at a campground in the park around 3:30 p.m. It was first time we arrived at campsite before dark. For the social distancing, campsites were open only every other site. I am not sure it is very meaningful, since each site is quite big, but I think that it is still a very good idea, because in that way crowd in the restroom or entrance check-in/out area can be avoided. Guys don't know, but sometimes campground ladies room has a line. We foraged and had campfire and looked at sunset. It was very nice! 

Nice campsite

While we were sitting by fire, a guy from a few campsites away walked by with a dog and talked to us from 10 feet away. "It is a beautiful site!" Mr.N replied, "Yes we saw sunset." He replied,"Oh my God, it is nice." He was talking to every camper. Very friendly guy. We really liked the site until the middle of night. 

Campsite 71, across our campsite, had RV. They were running generator in the evening. I hoped that they would stop it soon and went to bed. At 2 a.m. I woke up by the sound Mr.N was going outside of the tent. Sometimes we go to the toilet in the middle of night, so I thought that he went to the restroom. I also noticed that the generator was still running. A few minutes later I heard that Mr.N and a guy talking. I couldn't hear what they were talking, though. I asked Mr.N what he talked with the guy when he came back to the tent. Mr.N was pissed that the generator was still ON at 2 o'clock in the middle of night and talked to the guy in the RV. Mr.N basically lit his headlamp into the RV until the guy came out. MrN asked to stop generator but the guy said they had two babies saying cold, and their rental RV was crappy and had to keep generator on. Campground rule is generator is allowed ONLY 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. 

Huh? If heat is needed one should not go camping. Stop generator and go to a hotel!!! Being cold is a part of camping. Besides, car camping you can have jackets and blankets as much as you want. We should have gone to camp host at 8:01 p.m. 

They turned off the generator next morning at 7:50 a.m. So annoying. 

Next morning I saw their kids. They are not "babies". They are old enough to talk and walk. They had plenty of layers including down jackets. That made me angry, and thought, "Sigh those Americans. That's why you are not welcomed as travelers. So selfish!" The guy apologized and said they were leaving that day. Mr.N said that we were leaving too in the angry mode. The guy apologized but his wife didn't. On the way out campground, we stopped by the booth and talked to a camp host. We told her the incident and she was like, what the hell, and said, "Cold is part of camping. People need to respect other people. I will talk to campsite 71." She looked very motivated to go talking to them. I felt much better after talking to her. 

EVERYONE! Follow the time frame when generator is allowed. Be respectful at campsites! People go camping to be peaceful and enjoy nature, not to hear artificial generators!

To be continued...

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day2

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day2, 2020/11/27

We got up at 5:30 a.m. and ate breakfast. My breakfast is ochazuke and Mr.N's is oatmeal. You can tell who is American is who is Japanese by that. 

This day we drove 1.5 hour and went to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. It was my first time visiting Virginia. Things I knew about Virginia are 1) One of East Coast states, 2) It has Shenandoah National Park, 3) Mr.N's co-worker Ms.D is from Virginia. That's it. So it was good to be there and see in person what it is like. 

I found that Shenandoah is East Coast style National Park. Blue Ridge Mountains are pretty and its appearance and style is similar to New England's, especially New Hampshire's. There are full of green trees, however, although I mentioned that it is similar to NH, much less trees than New Hampshire. In NH, it is impossible to see any view between trees, but here in Shenandoah, you can see scenery between trees. I liked that. At the hill tops, there are rocks usually and views are nice. Iconic rocky terrain in New England is also in Shenandoah. 

One of interesting features about Shenandoah National Park is that the park is really long from north to south, but it is short in the width, east to west. It is about 100 miles from north to south, but some area less than 10 miles in the width. This shape is because park is covering the mountain range. Interestingly, there is a paved road on the mountain ridge all the way in the park. According to the brochure, the road was constructed to give everybody an opportunity to enjoy the mountains. The road was made in the era cars got popular in the U.S. Mr.N said that in that era Americans tried to make roads literally everywhere so that people could go everywhere by cars (and not walking at all). 

Another thing worth mentionining is that Appalachian trail is all the way along the scenic road. Appalachian trail (AT) is a long distance, 2190 mile-trail from Georgia to Maine. For AT hikers in this part would be great, because frequent visitor center accesses, which includes restaurants, campground, and lodges. According to the park pamphlet, there are 4 food service areas and 2 lodging areas along AT. When I was reading the brochure, I found a picture of President Hoover and his wife. Although I knew his name due to Hoover tower at Stanford (I worked there before as a scientist), I had never seen his picture. I said, "He is fat", and Mr.N said, "Yes." I replied, "How do you know?" Mr.N said that he learned that Mr.Hoover was fat at school. He learned that several things about each President and one bullet point about Mr.Hoover was that he was fat. I laughed. It was a bit sad that one of past America's President descriptions is being fat, but I thought that it was very funny. I read the description on the brochure regarding Hoover and I thought that he was lazy. He built Rapidan Camp as a retreat and he and his wife came to Shenandoah National Park "to escape the stress of work and summer's heat and humidity in the Nation's Capital."  The quote is from the pamphlet. I was not sure that President escaping from stress is publicly accepted. I had a positive impression of Hoover, because he donated his books to Stanford and beautiful Hoover Tower, but now his points are subtracted. Anyway from this and map, I learned Virginia and Washington DC is next each other, which I didn't know before. 

Lunch time

OK, so, finally hikes. We did small 2 hikes. The first one was North Marshall Mountain. It was only 1.3 mile with 276 elevation gain. It was a lunch time, so we sat down the top and ate tuna packs and bread with hot tea. We always prepare tea (K), and coffee (Mr.N) in a insulated mug (not Thermos but they are Zojirushi, which is my forever favorite brand) for a day. There were no people hiking at that time, so it was peaceful and nice.                                     

Blue Ridge Mountains

Second hike is another small one, 2.2 mile with 495 feet elevation change to the park's highest point, Hawkbill peak at 4051 feet. Probably because it is the highest peak in the park, there were many people, especially at the summit area. I wished there had been less people. 

After the hike we drove the scenic Skyline Drive until the end. Along the road there are many turnouts for overlook. One overlook is named Pinnacles Overlook. I was expecting that something interesting rocks there due to the name pinnacles, but there was not a single one. Hummm. It might be because there is a mountain called Pinnacle Peak 10 miles away. I didn't see any signs of pinnacles, but maybe some can be seen if I climbed there. Who knows.

Probably near Riprap Overlook

Near the end of Skyline Drive, we saw a very good view. The sunlight from clouds going to the waves of mountains. We sat down a little and enjoyed the view. Then we left the Shenandoah. 

Shenandoah is too far to drive for weekend from Boston, and if we fly we go to the West. If there was no pandemic, we would never visit Shenandoah. It was a good opportunity. 

Love Fire

                                                                                                                                               Then we drove to West Virginia and camped in the National Forest.  It was a big camping area but only one group was camping far away. We made fire and enjoyed it. The picture is a morning campfire. Fog in the forest was pretty. It was above freezing temperature and it was no problem with dealing with cold. 

To be continued...

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day1

2020 was a tough year for many people due to the COVID-19 pandemic. How could anybody predict this?!

This pandemic has changed people's life styles.

COVID-19 changed our 2020 hiking trip plan, too. First, we planned to go to Montana in summer, because Mr.N's sister Ms.F1 would have a wedding there. We planned to hike there in addition to attending the party. Of course wedding during this COVID era is not a good idea. So it was cancelled. Cancel or not, anyway we were not comfortable with flying during COVID, so we didn't go anywhere in summer, and instead we hiked here and there in the local. 

We hoped that we could travel somewhere soon after. Then summer passed, and fall came, but the pandemic continued. Actually it got worse and worse. In the past few years we went to the south globe in December, since it is summer time in the south globe when the north globe is winter. This year, we can't fly and anyway no country welcomes US residents! Furthermore, even US domestic flights are not safe (actually more dangerous than international flights, in my opinion). 

So what did we do? ------We did a road trip within the United States!

Because we didn't take any vacations until thanksgiving, we were able to combine our vacation days with thanksgiving and Christmas break, AND new year break to be a long vacation. We did the 39 day's trip in the West! 

A couple of days before trip, we went to grocery stores and bought food for camping, such as instant rice, cup noodles, pasta and pasta sauces, tuna packs, dried seaweeds, Japanese curry packs, ramen/soba/udon noodles, fish, cookies, chocolates, etc.  Important tip here is getting Japanese snacks, ramen, pasta sauce, Japanese fish cans, dried seaweed and dried vegetable salad kits and Japanese cookies and chocolates! Those are the essential survival items for me as a REAL Japanese to go to middle of nowhere. 

2020, November 26th is our trip day1. For this trip we decided to rent SUV instead of taking our sedan, because we had a lot of camping gear and food, we needed space for stuff and comfy atmosphere. Only "mmmmmmm" thing for the car was not a Japanese car, but it was AWD, so I couldn't complain. The number plate was Rhode Island, and we decided to pretend RI residents for six weeks.

Driving off Mass, I was thinking, "Oh is this really happening? Thanksgiving has just started and I won't work until January 4th!" I felt a little surreal. Well, it might be typical vacation style for Europeans (French)?! Definitely not for Japanese! 

On the way we saw a couple of bad accidents. One was that a car was completely climbed up to a guardrail. Since it was an opposite lane, we were not affected. Another accident we saw was insane. A car was burning in the big fire ahead. The car was at the edge and the owner was standing 50 meters ahead and texting. How could he text not looking at his car when it was in the big fire?! We saw two police cars were coming to the burning car. Wow. It was like a movie. 

During drive, we listened to radio or podcasts mostly. Our first choice radio station is local public radio. I like NPR news. Usually local public radio is FM somewhere between 85 to 95 (although Mr.N said tune is over 100 in Montana). There is a public radio station in the area of big cities but I found there is not in the rural areas. When we couldn't find a local public radio station, we listened to podcasts.

Our favorites are: 

1. Car Talk

2. Hidden Brain

3. Invisibilia

4. Wait Wait Don't Tell Me

5. Embedded

With radio and shows, we drove through Connecticut, New York, then Pennsylvania. Penn. Recently I heard Penn a lot during November election. Actually I got much better sense which state I was during this trip, because I listened to and watched Youtube videos for election results. That helped me to get a sense where I was within the U.S. by imaging a US map in my head. It is a great progress considering that I didn't know how many states in the U.S. when I came to the U.S.! (Who foreigners care?) Anyway here I want to say about Penn was that all the rest areas along highway were closed!!! We went to a fast food store and it was only drivethru! No restroom....then, WHERE TO PEE?????   As a hiker, I don't care using "wilderness restroom", but I heard that it is illegal to pee in the civilized area.

Finally we found that a gas station had restroom. 

Then after 7 hours of driving, we decided to stay at the campground in Antietam Battlefield & Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park (the longest park name ever) in Maryland. It is convenient these days: through recreation.gov App, you can quickly reserve a campsite. This was a very nice campsite along Antietam creek and upper Potomac river. There are more than 18 campsites, but only 2 of them were occupied that night. Other group was far away, so we had a peaceful night. Price is cheap, only $10/night, probably because you need to walk 0.1 mile to the campsite from car parking. It seems like most people hate the walk like that. 

Campsite

A picture of campsite in the morning is in the left. 
There is a grill, a fire pit, a picnic table set for each site, but nobody is in the sight. This photo was taken after the fire was extinguished mostly, but you might be able to catch the small smoke from the pit. Fire warmed up me a lot in the winter camping and loved fire even more in the cold! (although Mr.N still said fire was not necessary).

I don't know what kind of fruit or nut this is

 

While I was doing final ground check before leaving, I noticed that yellow ball on the ground. At first I thought that it was a tennis ball.  I thought, "Okay, a doggie left a toy"

More yellow balls

Then I realized that there are a lot more yellow balls on the ground. I looked around more carefully on the ground and it seems like that birds or squirrel eat this stuff.  I had never seen these things and it was interesting to see these. 

After eaten up

To be continued....

Mount Hale and Mount Zealand

Mount Hale and Mount Zealand Hike

Distance: 14.4 milesElevation Change: 4121 feetType: Loop with a long spur (Hale Brook Trail-Lend-Hand Trail-Twinway Trail-Zealand Trail-Zealand Road)Summits: Mount Hale (4049 feet) and Mount Zealand (4265 feet)

Recently I decided to hunt all the 4000 footers in New England. If I complete the list I am eligible to buy 4000 footer patches. Actually anybody can buy the patch without showing any proof of completion. It is just how honest to yourself. I want to get a patch as a reward and for my proud. Also it is fun hunting something. 

I love patches, especially for hiking memories. So far I have a patch for John Muir Trail and Tour du Mont Blanc. Why not adding another one? 

New England 4000 footers patches are famous and a lot of people are hiking to complete the list. We even heard that somebody was talking with other hikers at one of the summit of 4000 footers saying even dogs can get a patch. In fact a lot of dogs are hiking for 4000 footers (obviously taken by owners who are doing the list). 

This day we checked off two 4000 footers: Mount Hale and Mount Zealand.
First we started from Hale Brook trail. It was only 2.2 miles to Mount Hale. Although there was no view, we saw 2 cute doggies. The owner said that it was one of the dog's first 4000 footer! Good girl :) The other dog it was the third one. Hardcore dogs.  

Then we continued hiking via Lend-a-Hand trail, which is an interesting name. Now 1500 feet down, then connected with Twinway trail. Again 1500 feet up and reached to the Zealand top. On the way we stopped at the Zealand cliff viewpoint. This was a very good view, and glad we stopped there, because there was no view at the summit.

The rain clouds were approaching. That made the scenery dramatic. 

Zealand Falls

While we were eating lunch at the summit, it started raining. We quickly put rain jackets on and started descending. The worst timing to get rain: the half way point and 5 miles to go. I was hoping that it was a shower not the rain. Luckily after a mile of hike the rain stopped! Clouds went away and blue sky came. This made the Zealand waterfall prettier, since the waterflow drastically increased. We sat down on the rock in front of falls and ate peaches and dried our rain jackets. 

After that it was only downhill via Zealand trail. Although 2 summits had no view, still falls and Zealand cliff was great spots to stop. Finally we concluded the day with sushi from our favorite Japanese supermarket. 

Welch and Dickey Loop

 In the middle of October, fall color peak is past in northern New Hampshire, and now at the peak in southern New Hampshire. To see more autumn colors, we headed for Welch and Dickey loop, which is in the southern New Hampshire. 

A day before I looked up, "10 Great Fall Color Hikes in New Hampshire" and found Welch and Dickey loop was ranked #1. The description was family hike friendly and short. It was indeed only 4.5 miles, so we were at first a little hesitant. We love a big hike like 10 miles with 3000 feet elevation gain, but the loop is half of our usual hike in terms of both distance and elevation gain. However, we prioritized the fall color and decided to check it out. 

As usual we left Boston at 4 a.m. Since this loop is closer than usual places we went and sunrise time is getting later, it was dark when we arrived at the trailhead. We ate breakfast in the car with small light. By the time we were ready to go, the light came. Perfect. We could have come later, but we were concerned that "family hike friendly" place got really crowded later in the day (in fact, when we finished hike the big parking lot was full). 

trail

sunrise

First portion is in the forest. As we hoped, it was very pretty fall color. It was pleasant to walk under orange and yellow leaves' canopy. Luckily nobody was on the trail and it was very peaceful. After a gentle climb we encounter the first viewpoint. More autumn colors can be seen. Beautiful. There we saw sun just came out from the ridge. I always love sunrise and sunset over the mountains. 

Orange!

Warm orange sunlight now started shining on the orange leaves. That made the mountain scenery more welcoming. It was a color magic. 

One little annoying stuff around here was a guy who had music on. He was at the Welch summit, so we took pictures and carried on hiking. 

After a while I declare here that today I had my favorite fall color view of the year. That is the picture below. The color was magnificent. It was literally like a painting!!! This was a great hike!

Colorful

Buck Pond Kayaking in Upstate New York

Labor Day is the first Monday of September. Labor day is a holiday in the U.S. to recognize labor movement. Since the Labor Day is always Monday, it will be a 3-day weekend. It is kind of the last good opportunity for summer outing for many people. 

Usually we plan something big trip in summer, sometimes including Labor Day weekend, however this year we didn't have a big summer trip due to COVID-19 pandemic. A little disappointing, so we wanted to plan something for labor day weekend. Of course anytime we can go hiking and backpacking without reservation in New Hampshire, but this time we wanted to have "something" for sure. So we looked up campground reservation over labor day weekend. The only one campground is available for booking on labor day weekend in the entire New England. The only one campground. Wow. We booked it. 

Buckpond campground is located in upstate New York. It is actually very close to Canada. When I searched it on the internet, it seems that the campground is popular not only Americans but also Canadians, especially from Quebec residents. This summer in 2020, US-Canada border is closed for traveling. That seems to be a reason it is less people this year. 

On Saturday before going to the campground we hike up to McKenzie Mountain near the campground. It is nice to hike in upstate New York which has more lakes around, compared to the White Mountain area in New Hampshire. 

Nice Forest

The first 2 miles are relatively flat in the nice forest. On a sunny day, sunlight came through between the trees. I really like sunlight arrived on the dirt. It made the forest more welcoming and warm. The last mile and a half was steep, but good workout. From the summit there are a number of lakes could be seen. Great place to stay for a couple of days to kayak. 

From the top

In the evening we arrived at our campsite and started fun: cooking over the fire. This time we cooked asparagus with lemon, sausages and bell pepper with lemon. Asparagus was an experimental dish and it was not really good, but sausages and lemons were delicious! After we got full, we went to the beach of the lake. It is 3 minute walk from our campsite. 

The evening lake is extremely calm and beautiful. The shadow of mountains are pretty. Oh wow. We discussed the plan that next evening we would paddle here in the evening. Somehow a lot of lakes get calm in the evening with much less winds. It is a great opportunity to paddle at sunset if you don't need to go home after paddling: we had to walk just 3 minutes there!

Looking at the lake in the evening

And........we paddled in the evening at sunset on the next day. It was super peaceful. Evening orange light reflect on the lake. It was very pretty. The trees at the shore also shined orange by receiving orange light and it was reflected on the lake surface. Wow. It was time sensitive and beautiful. Definitely evening kayaking is the highlight of this camping trip!  
After we enjoyed a lot with kayaking, we went back to the campsite and had fun with fire more. 

One downside of our site was the site across the road from our site was noisy. There were 4 people there. It looked like they were friends. 2 Indian guys (from their accents) and a Chinese female and an Indian female. They drank a lot and chatting so loud. It was annoying for people like us to enjoy peaceful night. Quiet time for the campground was 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Mr.N was planning to tell them once it gets 10 p.m. to be quiet. Luckily they got quiet at 9:50 p.m., but this is one of the cons of car camping. You never know your neighbors are loud or quiet. Of course there are pros: you can cook over the campfire, you can bring a lot of futon and comfy pillow, and as much as jackets. In contrast, in the remote backpacking, it WILL be extremely quiet, but can't be super luxury with nice pillow. 

Mother with fish

Mother giving baby fish

On the third day we paddled again. The highlight of the paddle was a loon and her baby. Although the body size of the baby is identical with mother, the fur color was still brown, which is baby color. The mom is sometimes dive into water and then she found fish. The baby was big enough to learn to dive into water but couldn't find any fish. Every time the baby got out of water, he just cried a lot. It sounded like he was whining to mother that he couldn't catch fish. Then mother with fish swam to baby and gave it to him. The baby looked like satisfied.