River To River Trail- Failed Thru Hike -The Good, Bad and Ugly.- Day 4

Conclusion- 

Having made it to the cabin and getting hydrated, I did feel a bit better, but I was still nauseated and my core temperature was not back down to where it should be. I decided that the best decision was to call the hike off here, where at least my location was around normal roads. I had contacted my friend John who had brought me down and he said he could come pick me up the next day in Eddyville at Shotgun Eddys. I had sent a resupply to Shotgun Eddys after talking to Tammy, who was just super nice, and I had planned to stay somewhere around Shotgun Eddys so I could have dinner that night and breakfast the following morning. I was only about 13 miles from Eddyville in my present location, so if I had too, I could get to Eddyville on my own, carrying water from here or there was likely water in Lusk Creek along the way. 

I did have another contact from the Facebook group, Matthew, who lived in the area and offered any help I might need, so I gave him a ring and he was kind enough to agree to come get me the next morning from the Cabin and drive me over to Eddyville. 

All logistics solved I tried to relax and come to grips with not being able to finish the trail. In the end it was no ones fault but my own for not following through on my own plan to postpone the hike if the temps were in a range I know from past experience are difficult for me. 

Even though I am recently retired and have all the time I need, I think I have not learned that I am not under some kind of time constraint to get things done even with the very limited window we have in the Midwest for a hiking season. (old habits die hard). The fact that I had a reservation at Giant City, did not help, when in actuality that would hardly impact the hike if I was one or two days later because of these conditions. All good lessons to be learned with my new reality of available time. 

But here we are, still not able to eat anything but sitting in the shade and trying to cool down, mad at myself but happy that I could make good decisions to get a safe outcome. 

- the mild heat stroke remained for a couple of days after returning home, as I was much less tolerant of the sun and heat, I avoided being outside for any length of time- a classic symptom.

Later I will pitch my tent (oh by the way, let's talk about this tent thing! 4 nights and not a single level pitch and at 63 having to be conscious of how to crawl in and out without hurting myself. 😆😆😆Why I didn't bring my hammock is another good question. With a base weight of 11 pounds a few additional ounces would have made no difference.) 

Anyway, this is a nice trail and in the Fall or early Spring would be a great walk again. 

I can not thank enough; Shannon, Matthew and John for their support and time. I am sorry that I needed to impose on you, but very glad you are the kind people you are. Thanks also to Glenn Lawrentz for providing some very good resource videos and information about the trail.

So, day 4 dawned, Matthew came and got me and dropped me off in Eddyville, John came and collected me and we drove back to St Louis.

BTW- No resolution for the Garmin watch issue, even after being home for a few days and sorting through all the online forums. 😂

River To River Trail- Failed Thru Hike -The Good, Bad and Ugly.- Day 3

The theme of this hike, unfortunately, seems to be the temperature. It was hot all night. No dew or moisture at all last night. My hiking shirt completely dried overnight, it is going to be another very hot day. To be honest my enthusiasm for this hike, not the terrain or the scenery, has waned. It is just exhausting to be in this oppressive air. 

Breakfast was a quick affair as I tried to be quiet as I packed up and walked out of the campsite well before most of the campers were awake. 

My view this morning was great as the sun was rising. 

This morning, packing up, I interrupted stink bug "whoopie" 😀😉

One last look at my view from the campsite

Leaving the quiet park 

back into the woods and 5 miles to the town of Herod.

The trail climbs you up to a ridge line for about 2 miles

There are several horse camp spots and camping sites along this ridge. Found a couple of piles of abandoned clothes. A Trail Show flashback, the only thing not here was a torch! IYKYK

The view from the ridge line was very nice

Several very old trail markers along this section

You reach a split in the trail. The well maintained one goes off toward The Hitching Post, an old convenience store- gas station. It is probably were some horse riders would start or end as it is located along Eagle Creek Rd with a good sized parking area. The other is marked the R2R trail and is a much less used single track. You can immediately tell that the trail from Garden Of The Gods has been maintained for stock as this trail is portion is far less maintained and overgrown. 

After only a half mile or so, you also come out on Eagle Creek Rd and have a road walk of about a mile to the town of Herod

Reaching the town of Herod, you come across the Herod Springs Baptist Church.

They do something that is really amazing for walkers, bikers, etc. They have a large pavilion with picnic tables, a refrigerator with cold drinks and snacks and electrical outlets to charge batteries, phones, etc. It is a very nice gesture of goodwill and they ask nothing for it! 

I spent about 45 minutes at the shelter trying to cool down with a couple of cold waters, but I was not having much luck. Having stopped in the shade, I started to feel my core temperature rising and feeling nauseous. I immediately recognized the feeling as the onset of heat exhaustion. The day to this point had not been very strenuous in terms of hiking, but was the hottest day so far. I was unable to eat lunch or really anything. I had a couple of apples left over from Al at the campsite last night and I barely kept those down. 

I thought about my options and in so doing recognized that if I am thinking about things that I might need at this point in the hike my chances of finishing were diminishing along with my energy.

I had a couple of names of members of the R2R Facebook group that I had corresponded with before the hike and they had offered various forms of assistance if needed. I made sure that while I had good cell service that I had their contact info handy. 

Leaving Herod on Hwy 34 (by the way the Post Office in Herod is directly in front of the Church.) It does not keep regular hours which is why I didn't send myself a resupply package to this location. 

You are only on the busier highway for just a couple of blocks then you turn on Raum Rd for about a two mile road walk. 

The road walk was very hot and dry. You get off the road just up a hill past a bridge that crosses Harts Creek. This is a bit bizarre as this little section through the woods takes you back to Harts Creek on a very overgrown section of trail that goes steeply up and then steeply down. There was a path that ran along the creek just before the bridge that would have brought you to this very same place.

There is another of the R2R society picnic benches. Very welcome for sure, but in a bit of a strange place. 

The rest of the afternoon does not have much to tell or show from my point of view. You enter the portion of the trail called One Horse Gap and the Eastern Lusk Creek Wilderness. The trail is overgrown in much of this area. While the trail is not hard to follow, be a bit aware that the trail markers in this area did not align with the description in the trail guide. The trail guide references FS trail numbers 145 and 170, neither of which I could find on the Avenza Map Set. 

The reason it didn't apply to me was that I went down to the first creek crossing near FS trail 120 and it was bone dry, as all the smaller creeks have been. Not feeling well at all, and not wanting to have further trouble in a 6 mile section of denser forest, I returned to the gravel road marked 186. This would take me directly down to my planned camping spot at Benham Ridge TH. Saving about 4 miles on the day, I decided the easy gravel ridge road walk was the better part of valor for today!

Reaching the Benham Hill Trailhead out of water and realizing that there is really nothing here but a gravel circular parking area, I had to make a plan B. One of the people that I had corresponded with was Shannon. She has a cabin on the trail just before Bethesda Church, which would be another three miles, but has a water tank, so that was the new plan. 

Benham Hill Trailhead (One Horse Gap Parking Lot)

After about a mile and a half you come off the trail (FS 1476) and onto Raum Rd again. There was a farm building and I spotted a well pump. As quickly as I could I filled my bottle with water and filtered it along the side of the road. This let me get some water in me after about 4 miles of being out of water. 

Just a dusty hot walk to the cabin and end of a very long day. 

The official count of spider webs hitting my face on this trip now stands at 700! 

The cute cabin was a site for sore eyes after a long (19 mile) day in 94f heat. I had not eaten anything today after breakfast at 7 am this morning, except two apples in Herod. 

FYI- Garmin watch said I did 27 miles today.... there is a good chance it is headed for the trash can! 

River To River Trail- Failed Thru Hike -The Good, Bad and Ugly.- Day 2

The temperature didn't fall much overnight. My quick dry sun hoody was still soaking wet this morning. On a positive note I did sleep almost 12 hours.... After I ate last night I laid down around 6 pm and I don't remember much till about 5:30 am this morning!

Today I will be going to Garden Of The Gods, a popular park with some great rock formations. I have visited this park before and spent a couple of nights hanging in the hammock around the park on various trips. It is just a bit more mileage today than yesterday, around 11.5 miles, I changed a few settings on my Garmin watch so we will see what it says for today. 

The temperatures and humidity for today is suppose to be a bit higher.

The trail meanders between Bassett Rd and Cadiz Rd through the Big Creek hollows

The morning light was particularly good through this section with the trees and wild flowers 

The trail weaves in and out of forest service, logging roads and just some single track that is a bit overgrown, but again not bad for the short sections you are on them. 

You cross the Big Creek a few times and then you have a short road walk on Cadiz Rd. 

Afterward, you start to head up hill toward High Knob and the High Knob horse camp area. 

You reach the intersection with the old Battery Rock starting section

You enter into an area used (maybe owned) by the High Knob Horse camp, it has many horse trails that meet with and crisscross the R2R trail, but it is not hard to stay on the R2R trail and there are a decent amount of trail markers when needed to keep you on track. This section has been extensively repaired (R2R trail crews or Horse camp?) but the deep ruts that you can tell were there have been covered in with rock, dirt and gravel... Thank you)  

 

This old cabin marks the spot on my map for a side trip and a site to see, It might be a pictograph, but that is somewhat in dispute. The first photo below if from the R2R trail guide in 2024. I am not sure when the their actual photo was taken 

This is my photo taken Sept 2025, and if it was an example of Native art it has now faded into obscurity. 

This particular area is a nexus for many horse trails coming together and several old cabins 

Down the trail a bit is the entrance to High Knob proper. It is just a short walk up the hill. 

There is a lovely view and a few picnic tables. You should never pass up a bench or picnic table without a sit down! 

After a brief rest, a short distance away, is the High Knob Horse camp. This is a community of permanent houses and trailers where "Horse people" have "vacation" typed homes to come and ride their stock. (well that is what it looks like to me, some may live here full time.)

The real benefit for me was the Campground Store. There was never anyone in the store while I was there but they had a cooler of water and Gatorade (no ice cream though 😢)

I waited a few minutes and looked around for anyone, but no one ever showed up. I got a couple of waters and Gatorades and left money on the desk with a note and sat outside on their porch for 30 minutes and had my lunch. Those drinks went down much better than my filtered creek water! 

Taking advantage of the camp store's porch swing and shade. 

After lunch it was on toward Garden Of The Gods. The trail after the camp store climbs up high on a ridge for a while and the scenery and the trail are very nice. I did see a couple groups of horse riders

As you get into the Wilderness area of Garden Of The Gods you start to see some of the really nice rock formations that makes the area such an attraction. 

Below is Buzzard Point ( a well known feature) and the location for one of the R2R donated picnic benches. Time for a break of course 

There is a fair bit of up and down when you leave the horse trails and enter into the Garden of Gods Wilderness area. Not long but probably the most strenuous of the day. 

Garden Of The Gods hiker parking lot has an R2R sign with mileage posted. My destination was up the road to the actual campground for the night. 

Got to the campsites fairly early (4 pm-ish)- about half the sites were taken but no problem getting one. It seems a huge waste to have a backpacker take up a campsite. Not to mention a pain because at least three cars tried to pull in a take my site, after dark, not seeing a car parked they assumed it was unoccupied as they didn't see my tent.  There is a lovely grassy area just across from the fee kiosk that would be perfect for backpackers and it actually has nice grass under many trees, unlike the complete rocky concrete ground of the campsites. 

My spot did have a nice evening view 

My campsite neighbor (Al and his dog Milly) brought over several apples for me. What a treat and all of the campers that I engaged with were all very nice people. 

Well today was actually warmer than yesterday, without a breath of wind. I actually laid out on top of the picnic table, cowboy camp style, for awhile, until the bugs found me... 😬

Nice view looking up 

Garmin update.

Garmin showed 19 miles walked today, when there was only 11.5. I have not had this much inaccuracy for a long time, It happened to me once on a day hike around Peck's Ranch with the OTSHAB group. It did not record a track again today. This usually means it is not getting a lock on the satellites when it first starts. I am really not sure what more I can do to get a more accurate calculation.