The Natural Bloomington Blog

I made a note to revisit the Hanover College campus back in October 2014 when I was in Jefferson County researching the Guide to Natural Areas of Southern Indiana. I literally drove in along the aptly named Scenic Drive, made a loop, drove out and headed west to the Pennywort Cliffs Nature Preserve. The campus, with its scenic overlooks on the Ohio River, was magical on that perfect autumn day. But I had no time to explore. Pennywort was the last of four natural area explorations on the travelogue.

So when my friend and landscape photographer Gary Morrison suggested last week that we pursue some waterfalls down on the Ohio, including Horseshoe Falls on the Hanover campus, I was eager and cleared the day.

We couldn't find our first option, Fremont Falls, which, at 108 feet, is reputed to be state's tallest -- a claim that is in dispute. So, I wasn't disappointed when we turned to option 2, the Horseshoe Falls on the Hanover campus. It turns out there are at least three entrances to the college, two of which we used and are not scenic at all.

After a dismal gray week spent poring over dismal data on Indiana State Forest logging, I was more than primed for a quick trek to a wildlife pond in the Deam Wilderness when the first blade of sun pierced Saturday afternoon's cloud cover. I had just finished a first-draft story on the cheerless numbers and cleaned the camera gear when I set sight on a secluded parking spot near the Grubb Ridge Trail that cuts a mile or so off the hike from the nearest trailhead.

This portion of Grubb is a multi-use path just west of the Blackwell Horse Camp and, after a week of rain, I knew it would be a slog in places. And since such conditions are not conducive to shooting close ups of the wood sorrels, two-flowered Cynthias, fleabanes and fungi that occasionally spot the trailside edge, knees and elbows weren't on the program.

Wildlife pond reflections topped the photographic agenda, closely followed by more practice audio recording the natural sounds that serenade every wilderness hiker through the Deam. This one involved a directional mic to eliminate my heavy breathing and increasing the audio levels to capture stronger avian sounds from the canopy.

While I should have known better, suffice it say I wasn't 100 percent confident that Saturday's Hoosier Chaper Sierra Club hike I led through the Orange County woods was going to be the extraordinary experience it turned out to be. Not many folks had signed on for the latest Hoosier National Awareness hike. Some canceled. Others got misdirected or caught in I-69 construction / IU graduation traffic. Until Friday evening, weather forecasts ranged from 20-100 percent rain.

No details, but coming off one of my roughest weeks in decades, I knew that hiking through the old-growth Pioneer Mothers Memorial Forest and hanging with my friends Andy Mahler and Linda Lee at their Lazy Black Bear homestead was the therapy I needed. But when I walked into the Lost River Market & Deli in downtown Paoli and saw Bill Hayden, who I've known for the same 30 years as Andy and Linda and haven't seen since he move to Clarksville several years ago, I knew I'd started rebounding.

I can't say the outing was the best Sierra Club hike or Natural Bloomington Ecotour yet. That would be like ranking my children. And I have, if you'll recall, led through the Southern Indiana wilds a busload of visually impaired guests, busloads of active adults (f.k.a. seniors), carloads of Chinese students, the Hoosier Supervisor, even a pair of grandparents and visiting granddaughters, etc. But it's up there, for sure. For damn sure.

Any time you feel Southern Indiana's lack of mountains, oceans, ancient forests or major rivers relegates it to second-class status in the cosmos of natural beauty, take a hike on Nebo Ridge. Or, better yet, show someone from a far-off destination that boasts all those natural wonders some of ours. You'll gain perspective.

I had the opportunity to do both in the past week and posted photo albums from each on the Natural Bloomington Photo Album page.