Thursday 4-27-23 Hiking at Cumberland Gap

Camping in Wilderness Road Campground

We woke up to 47 degrees. The heater was running. Perfect temperature for a hike.

I crawled out of bed at 7:15 and turned on the oven so we can have fresh cinnamon rolls breakfast. 

We started our hike at the trailhead in the campground. We hiked a gravel road for about a half mile to a sign for Gibson Gap Trail and Ridge Trail. As we were hiking the road we walked by a fenced in field with a sign saying don't feed the horse. At first we didn't see the horse and then it neighed. We looked for it and it was in the barn. It just wanted us to know it was there. The hike took us through a heavily treed forest. It was beautiful. We hiked over a creek multiple times, in a couple of places there was a bridge in others we used rocks. The creek wasn't flowing too high so the rocks weren't a problem. We met a poodle and it's master, who was jogging the trails. We hiked a bit past a sign pointing to the Ridge Trail, it was steep and there were some downed trees in the way, at this point we turned around. Our plan had not been to hike the whole trail because it was straight up the mountainside about 2,234 feet. This was a perfect place to turn around. Not too far away we picked up the Honey Tree Spur Trail Loop, which was a mile. The trail was challenging because it took us up the mountain a ways and it was steep. Once on top there a beautiful view of the forest. Then we climbed down the mountain on a switch back. By the time we got back to the Minnie we had hiked 3 miles. We had a wonderful hike.

Bridge over the creek

 

The sign for Gibson Gap Trail

 

The hiking trail

After lunch I decided to walk around the campground loops for an hour and fifteen minutes. I did it early because the rain is suppose to come in between 3:00 and 4:00. I wanted to get some steps. I walked the loops twice. It's a workout just doing the loops because the road goes up and down. By the time I got back I had walked 3 miles. During the hike I picked up a pretty flower. When I got back to the Minnie I took a picture using the camera and google identified the flower as being from a tulip tree. I ended up doing 15,000 steps for the day.  

Flower from a tulip tree

 

Tenting at Cumberland gap

Larry and I spent the rest of the day reading. Larry finished a book and started another. I continued reading Universe of Two by Stephen P. Kiernan. I did my Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. Today the event was Event: Easy Street of 30 games. It took me 58 minutes and 13 seconds, which put me in 8th place in my group. 

For dinner I made a bake. Later on I made chocolate chip cookies.  

The rain came in around 3:00 and was steady all night. It's suppose to stay around through tomorrow.