Although not paddling related we did do a little wilderness cleaning last Saturday in Kentucky.

I must say I was very surprised as to just how clean the trail we hiked.  I was on this trail back in mid Dec. 2007 and packed out one full bag and all I could stuff in my pack.  Noting to myself I would return to pack the rest out.
With that in mind I made our Wilderness Clean Up this trail.  To my surprise it was clear someone or group had beat us to it.  
Here we are starting our hike.

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Soon into the trail we find it fairly clean we turn off trail to check out the campsites.
Here is some paper and foil at the first campsite.

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After we clean the first sight up mostly the foil and a couple cigarette butts, we follow a side trail which turns out lead to 5 other campsites.

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Looking at my map I see this trail should cross the main trail about a mile up.  So we continue on, but finding the trail is harder to do as we go.
Soon we find a stopping point.  Our trail, about ¼ mile below us, but no way to get there.

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We turn around and quickly hike the trail we just came on, a mile of back tracking we short cut through the forest to pick up the main trail.

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A side trail takes us to see Grey’s Arch.  Red River Gorge contains many rock shelters this one was in the valley where we found Grey’s Arch.

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We pay our respects to a shrine left by a family of a fellow hiker from many years back who lost his life from falling off the 70 foot tall arch.

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One of the interesting things we found behind Grey’s Arch wasn’t trash unfortunately.  But a plant called White Haired Goldenrod,  only grows here in Kentucky according to the sign.

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Wild Flowers were in abundance.

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Arriving at a creek we find another campsite, this one was being used so we walked on up looking for trash.  

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It was time to head back to the trailhead.  

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Disappointed we didn’t find much trash on the trail to pick up.  I was elated to see someone else is doing their part in helping keep the Wilderness Clean.   The way I tried to look at it was small trash is just as important as the bigger articles.  I didn’t count the cigarette butts or gum wrappers, but there were several.  A few plastic water bottles, one was buried with only the cap showing.  Talk about laziness, someone taking the time to bury something in place of packing it out.
Even though we only had the three of us we had a successful clean up hike.  Eight miles total covered and two, make that three very tired kids.  

qp  
P.S.  Be sure to just us out.
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