A Barefoot Mid-Winter Hike

The Hocking Hills Mid-Winter Hike was held on Saturday.

Of course I had to hike it barefoot.

This was the 49^th annual mid-winter hike at Hocking Hills. It runs from Old Man’s Cave down to Cedar Falls and then on to Ash Cave. The total distance is almost exactly 6 miles. This would be my fourth time doing the hike barefoot, having done it previously in 2006, 2010, and 2011.

The forecast was for a high in the low 50s, so we could be sure that there would be a good crowd. I haven’t seen an attendance number for Saturday, but in the past, nice days have drawn more than 5,000 hikers. (Late addition: official count was a relatively low 4,305.)

The temperatures were something I really needed to be concerned about. While the forecast high was a bit above 50°, the forecast for when the hike officially begins ((9:00am) was for just about 32°. This is right at my limit for going barefoot for any extended period of time, particularly on frozen ground. While my soles do provide some insulation from the cold ground, the direct contact with the ground really speeds up cooling.

In the past, I’ve arrived around 10 in the morning to allow things to warm up a bit, but this time I thought I’d try something different. I arrived at around 8:10 so that I’d be able to park in a near parking lot. If you arrive later, they put you in more remote lots and then bus you to the starting point for the hike. I figured I’d just wait in my car (I brought a book) until the temperatures warmed a bit, and hope that the starting line didn’t get too long.

By about 8:20 I couldn’t contain myself. Even though the temperature was 28°, the line was getting longer. So I got in line.

The Line to Start the Hocking Hills Mid-Winter Hike

Walking through the parking lot was quite comfortable—it was asphalt and was already heating up. But the line was on a concrete sidewalk, and quite a bit cooler. I spent a bit of time resting more on the sides of my soles, just to keep the bottoms from cooling off too quickly.

Of course, just standing there generated quite a few comments from the other folks waiting (and a bit of surreptitious picture-taking).

At least I didn’t have to stand there too long. The day was looking so nice that they started the hike early, at 8:30. It still takes quite a bit of time to get everything started, though. The hike starts by descending into the upper falls area, and there is a lot of single-file hiking.

This picture was taken just before descending into the gorge. You can see the people bunched up in there.

Looking Down Into the Gorge

This area was also a bit difficult on my feet. It was already colder than I preferred, but there had been a bit of ice on this area, so they’d salted it. The resulting slush-melt ends up having an even lower temperature, so I did my best to avoid it (not always possible), which I could do by walking on the edge of the path.

Down inside the gorge there was a bit of ice formation. Some years it is solid sheets—this time there was just rows on rows of icicles near the top.

Hiking Below the Icicles

I did get somebody to take my picture in the gorge.

Barefoot in the Gorge

When the hike hits Old Man’s Cave itself, we ascended back to the top and took the A-frame bridge across the gorge to the rim trail. I did get a chance to warm my feet there, where they had a fire going next to the naturalists cabin. (I also had an interesting conversation with a volunteer there who told me that her mother never wore shoes, and also had to deal with occasionally getting kicked out of stores!) The fire was a chance to kind of assess how well my feet and soles were doing. They’d gotten a little numb and I was concerned about damage. Things seemed good enough to continue. (Of course, just in case, I had a pair of moccasins with me.)

Up on the rim trail, the path is quite a bit wider, so people had a good chance to thin out, with everybody going their own pace.

Along the Rim Trail

I tended to hike faster than most folks, so it was interesting to see/hear the reactions. Some folks just didn’t seem to notice at all (or were good at hiding their reaction). For others, I’d walk by and you could hear their previous conversations stop dead mid-sentence. For yet others, I’d hear them point out my barefootedness to others in their group, and occasionally I’d talk to them about it.

The rim trail took us the Cedar Falls, where the Kiwanis serve bean soup. You can see the smoke rising from their boilers.

Bean Soup at Cedar Falls

I had another chance to assess how my feet were doing here, as there was another fire. I could tell that they were not fully happy, so I had to make a decision. I decided I really preferred to push it. I kind of knew just what the results of overdoing it would be, and just decided I would put up with it if it happened (as long as it didn’t go too far).

Just outside Cedar Falls on the way to Ash Cave, the group right ahead of me was whispering to another member, when the member, who hadn’t seen me and didn’t know how close I was, blurted out loudly, “Barefoot?”

So I responded, “Yes. Barefoot!” That again gave me an opportunity to discuss it a bit. Yes, it really was more comfortable (even with concerns about the cold, though by now the temperatures were starting to rise pretty well, so the cold was becoming less and less of a concern).

Once we got further away from Cedar Falls, things thinned out even more.

The Path from Cedar Falls to Ash Cave

It was about this time, though, that I ran into (not literally) some people I knew: the scoutmaster and another scout leader from when my sons were Boy Scouts. They knew all about my barefooting ways, since I was the hiking counselor for the troop back then and did all the hiking barefooted. It was very nice to have some company to talk to. (It also made the hiking seem to go even faster.)

Here’s a shot they took of me just near the top of Ash Cave.

Along the Path Approaching Ash Cave

You can see that things are heating up, since I’ve opened up one of my upper layers.

We climbed down into Ash Cave at the stairway you can see way in the back behind the waterfall in this picture.

The Ash Cave Waterfall

In some winters there is a 20 to 30 foot column of ice at the bottom there. It has just been too warm this winter for that to happen.

Finally, the hike ended in Ash Cave, where I took this picture of my two scouting friends.

Hiking and Scouting Friends

From there, buses took us back to our cars. The hike is just a one-way trip, but one well worth it.

Next year we have the 50^th annual hike to look forward to.

Regarding how my feet managed, they ended up a bit tender after the hike. Some of that was the cold making its way to living tissue. Some of it was also hiking on the rim trail: it has a lot of gravel (and, with my soles just a bit numb, I wasn’t feeling it and doing a good job of avoiding it at the time). But there really wasn’t any damage, even though I really did push things more than good sense would have dictated.

And my feet were still good enough for me to play my usual Sunday tennis last night—I even held my place on our tennis ladder. It’s amazing that bare feet can do so much more than so many people think possible.