Nature School :: Expedition to Dickey Knob

I like to call long walks "expeditions" because there is the implication that we'll be in for a big adventure. I think that was the case this time!  We walked from my beloved childhood campground, Raccoon Branch, to the site of an old fire tower at 3,649 ft.  I've done this hike once before, the week that Hurricane Katrina made landfall twelve years ago.

It seems there are differing opinions on the length of this out and back trail.  My official guidebook says it's 2.3 miles one way, but I have read as much as 5.5 miles for the whole trip!  It felt pretty long to us, with the continuous climbing and the three snakes we saw sunning themselves.  I told the children this must be The Year of the Snake, as we have seen quite a variety.  I went years, maybe a decade, without seeing any.  We've had numerous conversations about safety as a result. 

We were so glad to make it to the top and settle in to cook lunch on my little Snow Peak GigaPower stove.  Ramen it was, of course, as that has been the family backpacking food for decades.  My dad would occasionally pack in steaks or Spam and I splurged on freeze-dried food, but Ramen has always been carried.  We had raisins, dried peaches, and Little Debbie fall cakes, too.  You have to have something like that to keep going, you know.

It was nice to rest on the ridge and, thanks to the wonders of modern living, you can see what we saw in this video.  The trail has had some improvement since then, but it is basically the same.  I love to imagine what the fire tower would have been like in its heyday.  There is a road to the tower and I would love to take it down (or up) some time to see what it is like.  I have tried to find it on maps, and I think I found it here (filing for my own records).

We took it to meet the trail at the saddle of the ridge, instead of skirting it and meeting up with that garter snake again.  The old road was luxuriously carpeted with moss and made us all so glad we had made the long trek to the top.  We sang songs on the way down, to keep up spirits, and we all admitted we were pretty tired and looking forward to sitting down.  Laurel, at three years and ten months, was the most intrepid of the hikers.  She said at one point she wanted to go to sleep in her carseat, but she took short rests and we made it down without any trouble.

Signs of Autumn were everywhere as we walked.  Goldenrod grew and bloomed in the sunny spots on the trail.  The wind howled around us as we crossed over ridges, and colorful leaves littered the ground.  There are still countless leaves waiting to fall over the next month, but we enjoyed picking up our favorites.  Acorns were everywhere, along with the occasional hickory nut (the bacon of the nut world), and dried oak galls were a dime a dozen.  Mushrooms had appeared at every turn, thanks to the rain we've had.  I guess those snakes were enjoying the perfect weather, too.