The thaw sets in

Tuesday
Today was a beautiful sunny warm day, so once Roger was finished with a financial phone call at 10 am, we set off for Clifty Falls State Park in Indiana. I wasn’t sure what to expect - I had seen some fabulous shots at the weekend on Cincinnati Hikes group on Facebook, but in the meantime we’d had two days above freezing, and today in particular was really quite warm - I took my winter coat in the car just in case, but ended up just wearing my fleece jacket, and no hat or gloves! To complicate matters, we discovered part of the main road through the park had been made one way - the “wrong” way for us, and to drive around the outside of the park and approach from the north would have been a long drive. The trail down into the gorge/valley was largely slushy, which meant it was still slippery on a slope, but my nano spikes didn’t help much. Down by the stream, there were still icicles to be seen, but the flow of the water indicated the thaw was well underway. In late summer, of Fall it is usually quite easy to cross the stream at this point, and the trail continues on the other side, but not today! Another problem was my “waterproof” hiking boots seem to no longer be water proof, and trudging through slush and other areas where the trail had almost become a stream, my socks became quite wet! Nonetheless, despite not seeing all we’d hoped to see, we got our 10,000 steps in, and it was lovely to be out in the sunshine, enjoying the clear blue skies, and listening to the sound of running water.
Step count: 11,521