Yesterday I went to Nelson-Kennedy Ledges State Park for my first hike in my new boots, and my first since I decide to take up hiking as a serious hobby. It's about an hour drive, which was fun with 5 people (Me, Melissa, Andreas, Tim, and Marielle) packed into a Honda Civic. I was actually a bit worried on the way out that it would not be worth the uncomfortable trip. Luckily, my fears were unfounded.
The park exists because it has lots of cool rock formations created by ancient glaciers dumping a bunch of boulders in a big pile. The trail map that I had only indicated about 1.8 miles of marked trail. We had chosen a short hike because Melissa was not feeling well, and because I wanted to break in my boots. The park is small, but filled with tons of little rock caves, cliffs, ravines, ledges, and climbs to explore. Between those exploring side trips and a couple miles of unmarked trail that we went on, we probably went closer to 4 miles total.
All of the marked trails in the park start from the same trailhead. Several of the trails simply run parallel to each other (S from the trailhead). The first (blue) basically runs along the bottom base of the rock ledges, the second (red) goes back over, under, and through some of the cool ravines and cliffs, and the third (white) sort of loops around up on top of the rock formations. We definitely followed the first two well beyond (S) their marked ends, farther into the woods. There are a few cool rocks back that way, but the trails do take you through the best sections. Also, at the end of the marked blue and red trails, there are some neat caves, with a creek coming down from a small waterfall which you can easily see from the white trail. There is one final trail, which runs N of the trailhead that takes you to a few more cool caves and to a neat, somewhat bigger waterfall. This one is maybe 40-50 feet high, but the water volume is pretty low, just a small creek about a meter wide a couple inches deep. We didn't see much wildlife other than a couple of frogs (one almost the size of my fist), but we were making plenty of noise and weren't really looking. I brought along my binocs, but never actually had a use for them.
The trails were not particularly well marked, but it's not a big deal since it is a pretty small park, and half the fun is going off the trails climbing and exploring in the various rock formations. The biggest downside was definitely the man-made junk all through the park. In most of the caves there were lighters and beer cans littered about. The trails rarely get out of sightline, and never get out of earshot, of the road. We passed a few other groups of people in the park, but the trails were certainly not crowded. This is definitely not a park for anyone who wants to get away from civilization and feel alone in the wilderness. But I highly recommend it for a fun hike with some scrambling around on rocks.
It was a gorgeous day, about 70 and sunny. We brought bagel sandwiches to eat after the hike, but everyone was hungry, so we ate before instead. We did not carry any water with us, so we were all extremely thirsty by the end. It was fine, however, since we were only gone for 2 hours, and we never really got very far from the car. By next weekend we should have our new backpacks with our water bladders to carry plenty with us. Also, it will be nice to have the packs for Melissa's camera, especially since some of the rock climbing required two hands and we had to pass the camera around to keep it safe. My binocs were OK since I carried them in the case because I am missing one of the lens caps.
My boots worked out well. They had pretty good traction, but I did still slip on a few of the wet rocks. I really appreciated the ankle support. I have two minor complaints. The first is that my feet are different by about a half size, so one boot fits perfectly and the other is just a touch loose. I think it will be fine, however, and I had no blisters or irritation whatsoever - amazing for the first time wearing brand new shoes. The second minor thing is that the top of my left ankle was a bit sore. I think it mostly had to do with how I had the laces tied and it should also be fine, but it is something to look out for.
My fiance Melissa took all of the pictures I posted here. She is an awesome photographer. One of these days I will make a post about here photography-awesomeness.
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