Winter Hike

Fr. Hahn and I left the house at 6:30 AM for our 6 mile winter hike. About two inches of snow had fallen overnight making the roads extremely difficult to travel. It took us an hour get to the park, drop his car at the ending point and drive back to Old Man's Cave where the journey would begin. We were the first on the road and thankfully there was little traffic. I saw two deer, one just about kissed my bumper. We also saw a fox on the drive to the starting location.

All of the tracks from the 44th Annual Winter Hike had just about disappeared beneath the new layer of snow. We began our trek at Old Man's Cave and hiked 3 miles to Cedar Falls (the spot I proposed to Nicole) and then another 3 miles to Ash Cave. The hike was beautiful, challenging, exhilarating and exhausting.

Here are some pictures from the journey with my comments beneath each. Click on the picture for a larger image.

This is a picture of the Lower Falls at Old Man's Cave. Since we have had sub-freezing temperatures for quite a while now the ice formations were spectacular. The falls here are basically frozen from top to bottom.

This is a stretch of valley between the Lower Falls and Cedar Falls. Fr. Hahn is on the left trying to leave me behind!

This spot is called Whispering Falls. During the spring and summer it is basically a marsh / swamp area. Here you can see ice mounds, common during this time of year, forming. The pointed one is about 15 feet tall.

This is Cedar Falls, frozen from top to bottom. The area in the foreground is usually a large pool but today it is a skating rink.

The center of this ice formation was the only place where water was flowing. When looking at the picture, the area in the center that looks like an ice grotto, is actually fast moving falls.

This is a view from the top of Ash Cave looking down at the ice formation.

Here is Fr. Hahn attempting to climb the ice.