For the 1st hike of the Fall 2024 hiking season, we met at the East Trigg trailhead, on Sat. Oct. 5th, 2024. Our leader for the day was Bill Gilmour. It was sunny And quite warm. We had 21 hikers, including 4-5 newbies. We “vehicle-pooled” North about a mile. and moved into the woods on the East side of the gravel road, into Jackson Hollow. We worked our way downward, into the valley, and for about 2 hours, essentially followed a bluff line on our “left”.  Several hikers crawled/climbed through passages. Some found some small windows and a group at the tail end observed a Copperhead snake about 18-20 inches long. Hikers also found several small turtles. 

  We took a lunch break at an overhang area that had a ring of stones for a campfire, then went across the valley, to the opposite side, for the afternoon portion of the hike, with the rock face again on our left. We did cross 1 small stream that was barely trickling. We hiked about 4 miles. 

Next weeks’ hike, Sat, Oct. 12th, will be led again by Bill Gimour, meeting at the parking lot at New Simpson HIll School, along Rt. 45, 10am. We will again ‘vehicle-pool’ to where we hit the trail. 

Until then, “See ya’ll on the trail.