Lake Monroe

Last weekend, I was able to head out to Lake Monroe (Indiana's largest lake) to help teach a Coastal Kayaking Class. We went to the easternmost part of the lake, near Crooked Creek, where few motorboats venture and where the lake, apart from a few channels, is less a lake and more a large, swampy marsh, full of eagles, herons, ducks, geese, fish, snakes and sucking mud.

It was a beautiful weekend, and getting outdoors and on the water was a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of grad school. I'll just share a few photos...

We made pizza on the fire – it was amazing.

After beautiful weather on Saturday, storms and low clouds rolled in early Sunday morning. Though it made us wet, the lake was beautiful -- it felt like we were paddling in Alaska or British Columbia. Indiana has its moments. 

This last picture is of the largest caterpillar I've ever seen in my life ("like a pickle," as one person put it -- just much, much hairier. And probably less tasty). I looked it up when I got home -- turns out it's an imperial moth: not overly rare (but large, with about a 5'6" wingspan), but rare to see as a caterpillar.

Vacation, briefly

I don't have much time to compose a post this morning, but I thought I'd post a couple pictures from the vacation so far. It's amazingly beautiful here. The weather has been great, the travel easy, and we've seen an incredible amount of things in just a few days. We were in Yosemite National Park the last couple days and today are back in San Francisco. We're going to do some things here today (Golden Gate Bridge, etc.). Should be a fun day!

The Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Forest:


The view from our backcountry campsite in Yosemite:


On a random dome in northern Yosemite:

Sunsets + Summer Reading

Ah, summer is finally here. I went camping last night at Yellowwood to kick off the summer properly. Since I changed the blog design the photos show up kind of small, so a reminder that if you click on them they'll expand to full- screen.

More blogging to come now that exams are done!

A bit more spring break stuff....

I'm on a real blogging kick here this past week... anyway, just wanted to post a couple more of my favorite photos from Florida:
This is the sandbar off of an island we stopped at for lunch one day. It was totally bird-infested. Or at least it was until we went running into their midst.


More of the birds.


There were a ton of Osprey. I thought this one was going to attack me for getting too close to its nest (the sign says "Manatee Zone, No Wake").


Plenty of sting rays, too. This was the biggest one I saw:


And lastly, might as well put one in of us actually kayaking, huh?

Quinzee!

No, Quinzee isn't a new take on Yahtzee. A quinzee is a type of snow survival shelter – something you could make if you were stranded in the snowy tundra of ... say, Dunn Meadow for a few days.

Basically, you make a huge pile of snow – the bigger, the better – let it sit and sinter for a few hours and then dig out the middle, making a sort of igloo/sow cave combination shelter. It was actually quite warm inside, and you probably could have slept three people in the shelter we built. As it was, we had five of us sitting inside fairly comfortably at once.

Anyway, pictures:

A day of adventure

Hard to pick just one photo today, as I took a lot. I was off today, and had about the best day of playing and adventuring I've had all summer.

This afternoon, we loaded my car with three kayaks and drove across the street to kayak the usually impassible wetlands. Since it rained so much yesterday, we were able to kayak the wetlands with surprising ease, and they were incredibly beautiful. Tons of birds, tons of green and some fantastic weather with a great sunset, to boot.

Today was great. I'm off to play some late soccer before crashing into bed. You can find the rest of the photos from today's adventuring on my Facebook page.

Vacation... Part II

Just a few more pictures to share.

The road through the Smokies:

The inspiring view from atop Clingman's Dome, the highest point in Tennessee:


And camp:

Vacation ... Part I

Here I am at the top of Rainbow Falls on the Horse Pasture River ... the falls were a 25-minute hike from the car, and we arrived an hour before the park closed. The locals assured us that the park service would actually lock the gate and lock the car inside the park at 6 p.m., so we really had to run through the woods to get a view of the river and the falls.

It was a real Last of the Mohicans moment, running through the woods and running along the river. Incidentally, lots of the movie was filmed right in this area, possibly even some on this river. I felt like I was in the movie. Except I didn't jump off the waterfall.


Here's a view from Newfound Gap in the Smokey Mountains National Park. The fall color was really coming out at higher elevation.


We spent one night in the Chataloochee Valley on the eastern side of the park, in an area where they had repopulated elk back in the 1990s. We got there kind of late, just as the sun was going down, so I wasn't able to get very many great pictures... but I do like this one.


Now you may be asking yourself, "Why didn't Tim approach the wildlife?" Well, here's your answer.


More to come, later...

The Rise of the Lost River!

First off, the blog layout keeps changing – sorry about that, I'm trying to learn the limits of what Blogger can do and add some new elements to the blog. Hopefully I'll continue to update it and make it better!

Today I managed to have another Southern Indiana Safari – and now I'm able to make my second post in my series on cool, out of the way places right in our Indiana "backyard." It was a great day outside, and I was looking forward to getting outdoors and taking some photos. Today I took my roommate along, and we drove down to the quaint little town of Paoli, Indiana. I had three destinations picked out: the Orangeville River Rise, the Wesley Chapel Gulf and the Pioneer Mothers Forest. They're all within about 15 miles of each other, and they're all uniquely interesting.

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The Orangeville Rise (or "The Rise of the Lost River")
Because Southern Indiana is rich in limestone, it's also criss-crossed with a network of underground caves, rivers and other unique geological features. Large portions of the southern part of the state have what's known as karst topography – a landscape shaped by the erosion of a layer of bedrock – such as limestone. Because of the dissolution of this rock layer, the area displays many unique drainage features and is home to thousands of caves. (Here's another interesting link about karst topography features: Karst in Indiana).

The area near Paoli has a rich karst topography, and the aptly-named Lost River is a great example of the complex nature of the hydrological system. A Sierra Club article about the river says this:

One of the most complex hydrological systems in the world winds through southern Indiana, dotted with deep springs, caves and sinkholes.
Except after heavy rains, a 22-mile section in the middle of the river is dry, while the water continues to flow underground, coming back to the surface in impressive springs called "rises." The water flows underground at depths of up to 150 feet.
The Lost River has been called an "underground Grand Canyon" and "three-dimensional river delta."

We set out to find one of few of the rises that happen to be on publicly-owned land. The Orangeville Rise is one of the locations that the Lost River suddenly bursts forth above ground again, bubbling to the surface just below a cliff on the south side of town. It's clear locals use the rise as a swimming hole, but exactly how deep the water is would be hard to measure – some sources indicate it's easily over 100 feet deep. The water is unbelievably clear and cool and has the most wonderful green tint to it. The Orangeville Rise isn't hard to find, and is right off the side of the road, designated as a National Natural Landmark. Definitely worth seeing.

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The Wesley Chapel Gulf
About five miles east of the Orangeville Rise is the Wesley Chapel Gulf, which is found in a small, 187-acre island of the Hoosier National Forest. The topography is drastic and unexpected – amongst the rolling farmland is a 1,000-foot wide sinkhole!

The Wesley Chapel Gulf was formed when a large section of the underground topography collapsed, sinking the terrain and exposing many caves, springs and other karst features. The most breathtaking part of the gulf is pictured above – where a large spring bubbles to the surface below the 200-foot cliff. According to most estimates, the water rises about 150 feet (that number rises to more than 300 feet if you believe some of the locals) and promptly flows into the cliff wall and disappears. It's really quite incredible. I'm not entirely sure of the name of this particular feature, but I think it's called the "Boiling Spring."

Once again, the water was incredibly clear at the top, while just below the surface it took on a pristine green color. You could actually hear the water coming to the surface and running under the cliff. It was amazing, and exceeded all my expectations of how beautiful it would be. There are also lots of caves in the area (caving, of course, is strictly prohibited) which criss-cross in every direction imaginable. They are prone to flash floods, just as the water level of the spring is apt to change often. After such a dry summer, I'm sure the water level was relatively low in this photo. I want to go back sometime when it's rained a lot and see how high the water rises. As dry as it was, I still got pretty muddy (especially my butt... when I slipped and fell... multiple times).

While we were at the Boiling Spring, we met two of the friendliest and funnest local beagle dogs – I nicknamed them George and Lennie in the fashion of Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." George was the leader, while Lennie was a bit bigger but just followed George around. Anyway, the dogs ran up to us as soon as we hiked back to the gulf and followed us around the whole time (I was impressed with their climbing skills). I caught this picture of "George" and I think it shows exactly what he's all about. What a happy life. Both George and Lennie (who didn't kill any rabbits or mice while we were there, to my knowledge) were both rewarded with a Nature Valley granola bar when they followed us back to the car.

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The Pioneer Mother's Forest
Not much to say about this one, as the visit here was cut short by my inability to find the darn place, and the fact that it was getting dark (and we were getting hungry). The Forest Service sells the Pioneer Mother's Forest as Indiana's only public old-growth forest – there has never been a tree cut inside the boundaries of the park, as far as their records show (apart from one or two for pioneer firewood, I'm sure).

Well, if you know me, you know that I LOVE trees, so I thought this place was pretty cool. There were enormous birch, oak, maple, sycamore and tulip trees. I don't think we hiked in far enough to really get to the biggest trees – most of the forest looked like much of the forest you see in Indiana already. It was still beautiful though, and I'd love to go back in a few weeks when the fall colors are out and find the really big old trees.

Anyway, it's time to go back to watching Raiders of the Lost Ark – an appropriate end to an adventurous day. If you want to know how to get to any of these places, give me a shout – they're not hard to find if you know what you're looking for, and they're all within an hour of Bloomington.

Right in our backyard...

I'm making a point of visiting interesting, funny and strange places near Bloomington. It's not the most beautiful place I've lived, but there is certainly a lot of character in the hills (and people) of Southern Indiana. On Monday (Labor Day) a small group of us went out to the Greene County Rail Viaduct.

A viaduct is a series of spans or arches used to carry a road or railroad over a wide valley or over other roads or railroads. Not many people know that there's a stupendous viaduct right in our backyard, in Greene County. In fact, the Greene County viaduct is said to be the third largest of its kind in the world.

The viaduct spans the Richland Creek valley on the Illinois Central Railroad. Built in 1906, the viaduct is a half-mile long and up to 180 feet tall. Reportedly six or seven trains still cross the 100-year old structure every day.

I walked out onto the viaduct a little bit – as far as I was willing to go, anyway. Remember "Stand by Me?" I didn't want that to happen, as there's nowhere to go off the sides of this thing.