Hike of a lifetime

It could be the hike of a lifetime.
If it happens.
You could blame the whole thing on a recommendation from Amazon. Or just chalk it up to an aging guy’s need for new goals.
Sometime in 2012, I bought my wife a new book on Indiana wildflowers. And the next thing I knew, Amazon was recommending a book about the Knobstone Trail.
If you’re like me, your response right about now is along the lines of, “What the heck is the Knobstone Trail?”
I’d never heard of it, and chances are you haven’t either.
But it’s the longest footpath in the state of Indiana, our own scaled-down version of the Appalachian Trail.
It stretches some 58 miles through the hills of southern Indiana. Delaney Creek Park in Jackson-Washington State Forest, near Scottsburg, is at the northern end. The southern end is in Deam Lake State Recreation Area.
Now that’s what I call a walk in the woods.
My wife and I usually take a local hike about once every four to six weeks, depending on the weather. But those are pretty tame and pretty short.
Last weekend, for example, before the Colts game, we trudged through the snow around the pond at Hudson Family Park in Portland.
Just before deer season made hiking in the woods risky, we hiked through the Bell-Croft Nature Preserve on county road 300 South, not far from Como. Other hikes will take us to the Rainbow Bottom, north of Geneva, or the Bibler Preserve, near Boundary City.
What all of those have in common is that the landscape is generally flat and unchallenging. And none of the local hikes takes much more than an hour, even at a leisurely pace.
The Knobstone Trail is a different animal.
It’s rugged and challenging by any standard, and its sheer length is enough to discourage more sensible folks.
But it also represents a remarkable opportunity to experience the natural landscape in a uniquely personal way and a chance to see what we’re capable of in our 60s.
The Knobstone is a relatively new trail. Work on it started in 1977, and parts of it are still being repaired from damage done in last year’s southern Indiana tornadoes.
And most Hoosiers don’t know it’s there at all.
So when Amazon recommended “A Guide to the Knobstone Trail,” I took a chance and ordered it. And when the book came, Connie and I established the hike as a personal goal for the two of us.
Rest assured we’re not crazy enough to attempt the entire 58 miles in one push.
Instead, we’re going to break it into manageable chunks. But even those — 7 to 10 miles or more — are going to be rough going and a serious workout.
And at this point, it’s safe to say we’re not yet ready to embark on the first leg of the journey.
So this spring, we’re headed to Brown County for a week, hoping to hike as many miles as we can and learn as much about our limits as possible.
Our best guess is, if we begin with our first steps down the trail sometime in the second half 2013, it could take us several years to complete the Knobstone.
That’s okay. We’re not in any hurry at all. It’s the goal that matters, not putting a notch on our belt.

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