Lost Valley

We (the family) drove out to Lost Valley in the Buffalo National River area on Saturday. This is the first time we've hiked together since Sabbatical. We saw our friends Jason & Jaime, Dan & Carol and Carrie there. That was funny because we had gone by Dan & Carol's house in the morning to get a rain jacket I accidentally left there. They weren't home, but we noticed Carrie's car in the driveway. Then later when we pulled up to the parking lot at Lost Valley we saw Jason & Jaime's 4-Runner (we knew it was theirs because of the Arizona plates). So 2+2 and we figured that they were all there together. Sure enough a few minutes later, they come walking off of the trail and were surprised to see us.

Anyway, after that we took off down the trail. The total trail length is 2.3 miles, so it was just right for Maitlyn to hike (her limit is around 3 miles right now). I carried Elspeth and Elise carried lunch. It was a nice trail along Clark Creek. This time of year around here most of the creeks are pretty dry, so no real water in the creek to speak of. It was an extremely shady trail - lots of tree cover. There were some cool features like the "Siamese Beeches". These are two beech trees that grew very tall, then about 30 feet up in the air, they somehow joined together to become one beech tree. There was also a big overhang/cave near the end of the trail called Cobb Cave, a small falls called Eden Falls and at the end of the trail Eden Cave. We didn't go into Eden Cave (Maitlyn gets a little freaked out by the dark in caves right now).

After exploring around a bit, we took a break to have our PB&J lunch, then hike out. It was a fairly cool day (for August), but I just can't get used to the humidity - too many days spent in dry Colorado this summer have spoiled me. Overall a nice hike. Probably prettier when there is water flowing in the creek or after leaf off when you can see further.