Category: Hiking/Running/Caving/Zip Lining

Hiking Team: Dave Miller

Date: August 7, 2026

Good urban legends attract me, and this is a good one. This .3-mile hike near Mt. Davis, the highest point in Pennsylvania, kept me alert for black bears and wild turkeys. It culminated at a bunch of large rocks with dangerous crevices and a snaky path below winding through them. This isolated, strange area gave me the creeps. Two bizarre mysteries are associated with this area.

Henry Baughman had two sons and an extremely bad temper. One day in the 1850’s while looking for lost cows, Henry got mad at his son August and clubbed him with a stick. Thinking he was dead, Henry hid the body in the rocks with the intention of returning later and burying him. Returning later, the body had disappeared. Baughman was tried and convicted of second-degree murder based on his other son’s testimony. August’s body was never found.

A second urban legend is that in 1830, ten-year-old Lydia Shultz was sent to look for lost cows. She never came home. Search parties failed to find her. Months later she was discovered and had turned so wild that she hid from searchers. She had survived by eating wild plants and berries. She returned to civilization and allegedly lived to the age of 25.

Hiking Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Date: August 8, 2026

Beginning at the Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center, we hiked the towpath across Olmstead Island to view the Great Falls Overlook. Along the path, we saw a beautiful, blue salamander passed by wildflowers and native trees & bushes. This area was a protected fragile, bedrock terrace forest ecosystem.  The Potomac River drops 60 feet at Great Falls. Raging through the gorge is a series of rapids dropping an additional 85 feet to Washington DC ten miles away. We watched the brave kayakers on the river.

Skipping the challenging, strenuous Billy Goat Trail A, a couple miles down the towpath we hiked most of Billy Goat Trail C. We passed large rock outcroppings where people were rappelling and hiked through mostly thick woods.

Hiking Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Date: August 8, 2026

Four miles of the AT are in the state of West Virginia. We rode a van from the National Historic Park Visitor Center to downtown Harpers Ferry, a small historic town of 300 people. We hopped on the AT Trail just outside town, hiked the lower section of town past historic St. Peters Roman Catholic Church and up a steep hill and steps past the ruins of an old church. A half mile later we came to Jefferson Rock, several large masses of shale rock named after President Thomas Jefferson who stood there in October 1783. The rock gives a beautiful view of the Shenandoah River. The trail then took us up and down a ridgeline overlooking the river. We had lots of shade from overhead trees, but the heat and humidity were stifling as we gained altitude. Later, we doubled back and visited the AT Conservancy Center just off the path. On an overlook on top of the hill, we had beautiful views of downtown and the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. We stopped and had a delicious lunch at The Rabbit Hole. Afterwards we hopped back on the AT at the lower part of Harpers Ferry, visited the John Brown Museum, hiked across a pedestrian bridge across the Potomac River where the trail ended due to construction. Overall, we hiked about 3 miles on the AT Trail.

Hiking Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Date: September 5, 2026

The Upper Falls spans 200 feet wide and drops nearly 50 feet. This makes it the largest waterfall in Michigan and the second-largest waterfall by volume east of the Mississippi River—bested only by the massive Niagara Falls. A long boardwalk descended to the river giving us great views of the colorful falls.

Its most famous trait is that the water is naturally stained with deep amber or “root beer” color due to tannins leaching from the surrounding cedar and hemlock swamps, making it one of the most distinctive sights in the Midwest.

The River Trail to the lower falls is just over four miles and is considered moderate due to the hilly terrain, exposed tree roots, muddy patches and multiple staircases. On the plus side, it parallels the Tahquamenon River which gave us many beautiful scenic views.

A volunteer ranger had some local animal pelts on display near the parking lot. Overall, we had a pleasant 4.4-mile hike.

Hiking Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Date: September 5, 2026

The River Trail from the Upper Falls to the Lower Falls (a little over 4 miles) is also part of the North Country National Scenic Trail and parallels the Tahquamenon River. A spur trail called the Island Trail crosses a bridge and loops .5 miles around an island giving us a close look at the Lower Falls. The Lower Falls is older than the Upper Falls. Geologists say that the sandstone on the river bottom goes back 500 million years before dinosaurs existed. Overall, we hiked about 1.8 miles in this area.

Hiking Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Date: August 7, 2026

After hiking up to the highest point in Pennsylvania at 3,213 feet, the High Point Trail connected with three more trails looping back to our original starting point giving us a 4.6-mile hike overall. The thick state forest trail provided shade, but it was still a very humid, hot hike as we hiked up and down the rocky trail. We passed many colorful mushrooms, lush green ferns and an occasional white-tailed deer and chipmunk.

Hiking Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Date: September 7, 2026

This county park sits along the Lake Michigan shoreline west of Mackinaw City. The site has a visitor center with restrooms and a gift shop. Outside is a semi-circle amphitheater where people can sit or lay down and view the stars and Milky Way. Rosie lay on a blanket and enjoyed the dark sky overhead. We were only permitted to have red lights in the dark sky viewing area, no white flashlights or cellphones. We enjoyed a short hike on the Frog Pond Trail followed by the fascinating one-mile Discovery Trail consisting of various discovery stations spaced out along the route. Each station had signage with information about a planet, cultural information and indigenous artwork.

Hiking Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Date: September 4, 2026

After kayaking 10miles on Lake Superior along Painted Rocks National Seashore, we beached our double kayak on the sand dune shores of Chapel Beach, jumped out and began hiking. A guide led us on the four-mile hike on Chapel Falls Trail. The trail ran parallel to Lake Superior, and a quarter mile later came to Chapel Rock, a famous sandstone spire, with a 300-year-old white pine growing on the top. Its roots stretch all the way across an open gap to the mainland for nourishment. As legend has it, the rock was the location where Native Americans and settlers first learned the Catholic faith.

After Chapel Rock, we hiked about two miles inland through the thick forest along Chapel Trail, which meanders along the Chapel River. We eventually came to Chapel Falls, a 60-foot-tall cascading waterfall, one of the most remote and spectacular falls in the UP region.

The remainder of the hike was a 1.5-mile-long journey through old maple forests sprinkled with beech trees and white pines. We then piled in a Paddling Michigan van for the trip back to the kayak office.

Afterwards, we stopped in Munising, and I ate my first pasty (Photo #5), a traditional, handheld baked pastry filled with meat and root vegetables. It is an iconic cultural symbol and signature comfort food of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (the U.P., where residents are known as “Yoopers”). It was very dry (later I found out Yoopers add ketchup or gravy) and Rosie didn’t like it. I found it very filling but somewhat bland without a topping.

Hiking Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Date: October 12, 2026

In our ongoing goal to hike to the highest point in every state, we were able to check off Tennessee. We hiked to the observation point and summit at Kuwohi (formerly Clingmans Dome), the highest point in Tennessee at an elevation of 6,643 feet and the highest point in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. It is also the third-highest mountain peak east of the Mississippi River. The trail from the Kuwohi Visitor Center parking lot is asphalt and you hike about .5 miles to the curving 375-foot ramp that takes you up to the concrete observation tower at the summit. The tower stands 45 feet tall. At 9am it was 48 degrees and foggy with low clouds and you could see nothing from the tower. After hiking several miles on nearby trails, we returned two hours later, and the clouds had lifted and you saw magnificent vista views from the tower.

Hiking Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Date: September 4, 2026

During our ten-mile kayak trip along Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, we beached here for a quick lunch. We hiked almost a mile out and back on a trail peppered with wildflowers and lined with hemlocks and other conifer trees. We didn’t have time to continue and reach the spur trail to Mosquito Falls, a small, picturesque 8-foot-high waterfall cascading over an 8-foot-high rock cliff. We did find some unique, colorful rocks along the beach.