Palisades Hike Near The Blue Bus

 

Brandon and I hiked the Palisades Trail on Saturday, which is along the Kentucky River, not far from where our blue bus lives.  The online trail guide said this was a heavily trafficked trail, so we were glad for the rainy weather as we knew it would keep sensible folks at home.  We didn't see a single other hiker until the end of the hike and we were back to the parking lot.    

The fall color was just beginning to show, and the trail was nice and wide and clearly marked.  All this hiking we've been doing is making me a trail connoisseur.  This trail had some steep climbs, and because of the rain the rocks were slick, so we were glad we had our hiking sticks.  

Say cheese! 

One of the neatest things about this trail was all the sinkholes.  In places the earth would just gap open, and we could see the exposed rock. 

The upper trail goes very near the top of the rock cliffs near the river.  We could see the forested slopes, the interstate bridge, the old road bridge, and the campground near the base of the cliffs.  

Purple asters were blooming and feeding the bees.  We saw thousands of little paw paw trees growing in the forest under the tall trees.  Someone is working hard to eradicate the bush honeysuckle from this forest, so the understory was open and we could really see the topography, unlike most forests in this part of the world where the honeysuckle clogs the forest so densely you can't see into it very far.  

The lower trail goes right down to the waters edge, so we could enjoy the cliff lines on the opposite bank, which are full of caves and holes.  It would take some serious rock climbing to explore those cliffs.  

The lower trail near the river goes right through a thick stand of stinging nettle.  Cool. 

After hiking over four miles, we were ready to leave the Palisades Trail and visit our bus property for a picnic lunch.  We don't visit as often as we used to, so our gate and footpath to the bus is overgrown.  I like that it isn't likely to attract visitors.  We found the bus just as we left it - shut up tight and no evidence of guest campers.  

The sugar maple trees were starting to glow gold in the sunlight.  We have a lot of bush honeysuckle in our forest.  I like the privacy screen it creates near the road, but it would be nice to cut the bushes around the bus and open up the view a bit.  We talked about tackling that project next fall, but not this year.  

We couldn't go inside the bus because we forgot the key, and we couldn't start a fire in the fire pit because of the rain and wet firewood.  Instead we used our camp stove to heat our lunch, and rested on the bench by the bus and admired our trees and the peaceful sounds of the forest and river.  How cool is it that there's a good hiking trail so close to our bus?!