Day 2-Hike-n-Swim

Ah, another busy day in paradise!

First we will back up to last night and ‘fess up – we didn’t complete the 7 mile hike to the remote campsite. It is not that we did not learn a lot about remote camping (we did), it is not that the boys didn’t really try (they did), it was just simply beyond our capabilities at this time.

At the base camp we went over the basics of what they needed to take. Water, tent, sleeping bag, fresh socks and underclothes. Then we divided up the food as each boy had to carry their part of the meal. Several boys had pre-packed their packs and we had a lot of HEAVY packs that we tried to correct! We headed out on the trail, and it quickly became apparent that we had several mis-sized packs for the scout’s size, several overloaded packs, and all were poorly adjusted. We made a serious attempt to correct any of the errors we could, but it was obvious we need more practice before an overnight of that distance.

So, truth be told, we headed back to base camp and setup there. Then we took a nice hike down the trail without the extra burdens and did much better that way. Like I say, adults and boys together learned a lot from the experience. Later this week we will do a dry run to drive those lessons home!

We did stick to the planned menu and ate last night and this morning as if we were on the trail, which again was a great experience.

Since we didn’t have to hike back in this morning, we had some unscheduled time. We decided to head over to the Nolin Lake Dam to take a look at that and to visit the beautiful beach there. We had a great day at the beach, doing a little fishing and a lot of swimming. The water was warm but not hot, and the sun was bright but a little cloudy. After lunch, we headed back to base camp to do some hiking and as soon as we pulled in we got caught in a 30 minute downpour.

We hiked down around the visitor center and historic entrance to Mammoth cave. It was really cold down there in the cavern entrance! When we came back out, our glasses were fogging over, and the humidity seemed so much worse than before. We also hiked around Dixon Cave and saw these vulture buzzards and the very active hornets nest.

Here a few pictures that we have taken so far so you can see what our campsite looks like and where we have been so far.

Tomorrow is the Cave tour (on our hands and knees and bellies!) and more adventure!