Yesterday I planned on doing a simple hike up Spruce Hollow. But as Robbie Burns put it:
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley.
Spruce Hollow is part of Hocking Hills, but in the area with bridle trails. It’s another of those areas that’s really only know by horse riders and locals. It does get a fair bit of use though, as can been told by seeing how chewed up the trails are.
The trailhead has a different special feature of Hocking Hills, its artesian well:
The water is fresh and cold, but with a very strong taste of iron.
From there one heads up a side ridge to parallel Spruce Run for a while.
It was at about that point that I started getting bored with just a regular trail, and it was at that point that I remembered that Burgoon Hollow was off to the other side.
So I diverted . . .
It required a fairly steep and cautious descent into the hollow. Fortunately, I found a non-abrupt way down. Burgoon Hollow is a fairly small hollow, which means that it was pretty narrow-sided. This gives you an idea of that.
[By the way, the reason I’ve been putting myself into at least one of these hiking pictures is just as a reminder that, yes, I really am doing all these hikes and doing all this exploring barefoot.]
It was absolutely gorgeous down there. With all the rain the creek was running cool and clear. There were various small waterfalls all about.
The other nice thing is the impression that one is truly alone down there, and that one is visiting a place that very few other humans have been to, at least recently. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the last time anybody had been there was when this guy was there a year and a half ago.
It’s surrounded by horse trails, and the riders surely don’t dismount and wander down into it. Maybe a hunter might go down there, but its small enough that I suspect game is really rare. (I also did not see any sign of a deer trail.)
When I was there before, I never explored to the head of the hollow—but I sure did this time. It was well-worth it.
It was really quite spectacular, if small. (Quite frankly, this picture doesn’t do it justice.)
You know, if this were the only such formation for miles around, people would flock to it and love it to death. But because it is so close to bigger versions like Old Man’s Cave, it sits there unvisited and untouched.
And that is just fine by me.
Switching perspective a little bit, and getting above that final waterfall, here’s the view looking a bit more upstream.
I’ve noticed this before, but never stopped to take a picture. These waterfalls, or water-drippings are all just coated with water-loving mosses.
They are firmly attached to the rock faces, and take it was passes what drips by.
Finally, the final beauty of the day was that the spring wildflowers are starting to pop. When you stick to the trails, it is easy to sprint right by them. But when you are carefully picking your way, barefoot, down a hill, they each become a visual texture to be admired.
Here’s a wood anemone (Anemone quinquefolia) that had just worked its way up through the leaf litter.
The rest of the hike was nice (up as far as Huffine Hollow, then back). Because of my exploring, I didn’t end up going as far, distance-wise as I had planned.
But I think I ended up going farther, spiritual-wise, instead.
You wrote about the mosses: “They are firmly attached to the rock faces, and take it was passes by.” I don’t understand the second part of that.
[Thanks . . . I’ve fixed it. RAN]
Thanks for the Burgoon Hollow pics. I have hiked the trail that goes by it but have not gone down into there. I have passed the artesian well many times and wondered if it was safe. I work at a water testing lab and it has made me a litte paranoid. Next time by it I will take a sample to test.
I’m going on the Chapel Ridge trail this weekend.