17 Aug 04 – Turkey Run State Park, Indiana
Today is our first full day of camping.  After a big breakfast we pack some water and energy bars, walk through the campground, and enter the extensive trail system here at Turkey Run State Park.  We walk down and through Turkey Run Hollow, a ravine with a sheer sandstone cliff on one side.  It is thought early settlers herded flocks of wild turkeys down into the “hollers” for easy hunting.  We climb back up and find the Inn.  Nearby we find the pretty amazing Nature Center, which has a planetarium and wildlife feeding station.  They put out a large amount of cracked corn and oil sunflower seed, suet,  thistle seed, and hummingbird nectar.  We see almost a dozen hummingbirds at one time.

Crossing the suspension bridge across Sugar Creek, named for the abundance of sugar maples in the area, we enter the main portion of the trail system.  We passed through Rocky Hollow, which was cool during the summer mid-day.  We pass Wedge Rock, which used be part of the cliffside before it fell off, landing on edge.  Just nearby, we see a very interesting hemlock growing from the point of a promontory, with an extraordinary show of its exposed root system.  We munch a few energy bars for lunch at Camel’s Back, which is a tree-lined ridge, hard to see with the leaves still on the trees.  The return trails takes us along Sugar Creek, and we end the day after nearly 6 hours of hiking.  Dawn looks a little worn out.

Dawn:  We noticed some interesting wildflowers in yellow and orange, that resembled lady slippers.  We later found out they were varieties of Touch-Me-Nots, so named because when you touch the seed heads they release and scatter their seeds.  I also found interesting a particular section of the sandstone cliff in Turkey Run Hollow.  The sedimentary layers were curvilinear, while the rest of the exposed rock faces had regular straight edges.

Turkey Run Hollow
This cliff is about 30 feet high.
Suspension Bridge in Turkey Run
Kinda fun to jump on.  For you engineers out there, I did experiment with finding a few nodal points.
Pale Touch-Me-Not
With bee butt.
Roots on Promontory
Pretty cool roots, huh?
Butterfly
We think this is a Red-spotted Purple.
Sugar Creek
Looking west from Sunset point
Squirrel
At the Turkey Run Visitor Center.
Hummingbirds at Rest
What's so interesting about this photo is that the birds are all sittting still, so you can see their wings. I had to wait quite a while until they all cooperated.
Groundhogs
They certainly look well fed, don't they?

We hike for about half a mile until we cross Turkey Ridge, an earthen ridge where the ground falls away steeply on either side.  On the right we can see Clifty Creek about 100 feet below us.  We descend down a sturdy stairway, which is under construction the last 40 feet, forcing us onto the steep slope.  We hike past an old mill site where wool thread was milled from raw wool, and then pass a rock formation named the Slide.  Here the shale has eroded and not given purchase to any plant life.

The second trail loop takes us across a mostly-dry streambed, where Dawn finds several of the wildflowers from yesterday, and some new ones she hasn’t seen before.  We ascend a steep dirt path and find ourselves at the top of a solid stone ridge named Devil’s Backbone.  Here the stone is about four feet wide and a sheer vertical fall on either side.  Many carvings in the stone date back decades, including one of a devil’s head with the year 1910.  At the far end of the ridge the earth path resumes, climbs briefly, and we take a few pictures for posterity.  Just over the hump we sit on the softly rounded earth before it drops away precipitously, enjoying our lunch of energy bars on the carpet of hemlock needles.

After the trail drops to creek level again, we find Honeycomb Rock directly in front of us.  The ancient algae embedded in the sandstone has worn away more quickly than the sandstone, leaving a deeply pockmarked sandstone cliff.  We return back up Turkey Ridge, chatting briefly with the workers who have returned to resume construction.

Dawn:  At the top of Turkey Ridge on our way out, we paused to catch our breath and gazed out from the ridge.  Suddenly, we noticed a pair of hummingbirds flitting about the trees just before us.  Stephen was excited because only yesterday had he seen hummingbirds for the first time, and today we were seeing them in the wild.  They would rest in nearby trees, and we wondered what they ate besides flower nectar.  Our best guess was “very very small” bugs.  I also found it interesting that we didn’t seen any other hikers all day.  It was a beautiful place to hike, and it was the height of summer, so maybe it’s one of Indiana’s secrets.

The Slide
In Pine Hill Nature Preserve.  Dawn in lower right corner to give a sense of scale.
Tall Bellflower with Caterpillar
We think the caterpillar is munching on the flower.
Spotted Touch-me-not
This is the same kind of wildflower as in the Pale Touch-me-not photo. However, that one was pure yellow and this one is yellow with orange spots. The spotted one we noticed in a lot more places in the Midwest.
Rough Blazing Star
I am starting to master the macro mode on my Canon A70.
Side view of Devil's Backbone
You can see here the overhanging cliff. Trail lower goes to the left, trail higher goes behind us.
Devil's Backbone from top looking right
Now we are on top of Devils Backbone. On the right you can see way way down to the creek.
Honeycomb Rock
The divots were made by algae embedded in the sandstone when it was formed, which then wore away more quickly when it was uncovered and started eroding.
Road Warrior
Have extension cord, will travel.

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