![\"2010-04-10](\"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/20100410MammothCave028.jpg\" "\\"2010-04-10")
<\/a> ![\"2010-04-10](\"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/20100410MammothCave039.jpg\" "\\"2010-04-10")
<\/a><\/p>\nWe wanted to stay away from the touristy areas since it was such a beautiful spring weekend so we decided to hike in the west side of the park to Mammoth Cave’s largest above ground body of water: First Creek Lake.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The route we chose began at the Temple Hill trailhead and then included the loop around the lake before heading out the way we came.\u00a0 Since we were hiking with our 1 year old, we thought it would be a bit much to attempt the longer route coming in from from the First Creek trailhead, plus this gave us a few options if we needed an even shorter trip.<\/p>\n
We came in through the Brownsville entrance and took the Houchins Ferry across the Green River (Check here for ferry hours<\/a>).\u00a0 The road is gravel and well maintained.\u00a0 There is parking at the trailhead, but it is not well laid out<\/p>\n The hike begins with a 1.9 mile segment that follows the ridge heading down to the Nolin River [NOTE: This trail has been recently rerouted.\u00a0 Old topo maps do not reflect the change.\u00a0 See links below.<\/em>] The trail is well maintained, and even though horses are allowed on this section, degradation is minimal.\u00a0 Overall the slope is moderate, but there are two sections that are relatively steep as you drop down off the ridge and then down onto the flood plain.\u00a0 The trail provides good views of the river valley.<\/p>\n Once you reach the base of the lake, you can choose which route to take.\u00a0 The left (west) option is shorter (for through hikers) and flatter.\u00a0 It passes campsite #1 and a spur trail down to Nolin Lake.\u00a0 The right option follows the base of the ridge, passes campsite #2 and crosses the two creeks which feed the lake.\u00a0 If you do the entire loop it is 1.3 miles.\u00a0 The longer option (ridge route) is 1.0 miles to the junction while the shorter option is 0.3 miles.\u00a0 We took the left (west) segment first so if we needed to double back to shorten things we could.<\/p>\n Overall we were a bit disappointed with the destination.\u00a0 Despite spring rains, the lake was quite low and marshy.\u00a0 Even then, it was only visible for about 10% of the loop.\u00a0 The spur trail to the river was narrow as it followed a deep muddy trench where the lake drains.\u00a0 Once at the river, the options were minimal.\u00a0 There is little shade and even less flat ground.\u00a0 There is a fire pit near the river, but when we got there it was filled with trash.<\/p>\n We continued on the short leg of the loop hoping to find another option for eating lunch along the river, but didn’t find anything.\u00a0 Compared with the trail down, the loop is in much worse condition showing many muddy sections which have been chewed up by horse tracks.\u00a0 The longer segment of the loop is much worse with several extended sections of muddy pot holes.\u00a0 In relation to the whole trail, 90% was in great condition; but, the remaining 10% could be very unpleasant.<\/p>\n Despite the mud on the trail, the creek beds along the longer segment were quite dry.\u00a0 Although, based on the debris, it was apparent there could be significant flow at times,<\/p>\n We ended up stopping for lunch just off the trail.\u00a0 We found a shady spot on the dried northeast section of the lake bed.\u00a0 At the time it was very pleasant, but I could imagine the bugs would be quite annoying later in the season.<\/p>\n Campsite #2 is just a few hundred feet from the south trail junction.\u00a0 It my opinion, it is the better of the two sites.\u00a0 It does not have the easy access to the river, but it does have a better view of the lake and seems to be more secluded.<\/p>\n On the way back out we noticed the blooming wildflowers much more (that is probably because we were going much slower as we hiked up instead of down).\u00a0 There were plenty of may apples already sprouting up and several other flowers poking through last year’s leaves.<\/p>\n Overall we had a great time and enjoyed the hike but I would not consider the lake to be a destination in and of itself.\u00a0 It was not a difficult hike, but it was not super easy either.\u00a0 You don’t have to be in great shape to do it, but you wouldn’t want to take a small child and expect them to walk it all on their own.\u00a0 It took us about 3 hours to complete the trip at a leisurely pace. \u00a0While I have not hiked it, I have heard the north section of the First Creek trail is pretty tore up from the horse traffic. \u00a0Something to consider if you are planning a trip of your own.<\/p>\n Mammoth Cave \u2013 First Creek Lake<\/strong> Date:<\/strong> April 10, 2010 Helpful Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n Sunday was the perfect day to be outside.\u00a0 The sky was deep blue, the temperature was just right and the trees and wildflowers were in bloom.\u00a0 We decided to take advantage of it by hiking in Mammoth Cave with the whole family (dog included). We wanted to stay away from the touristy areas since it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20],"tags":[108,537,536,539,92,538],"class_list":["post-1091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-reviews","tag-beth","tag-hiking","tag-mammoth-cave","tag-maps","tag-mikayla","tag-trails"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1091"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1092,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091\/revisions\/1092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Beth and Mikayla at the Trail Head<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n<\/a>Beth looking across the valley before dropping down the ridge<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n<\/a>Looking down towards the Nolin River<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n<\/a>View of First Creek “Lake” from campsite #2<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n<\/a>One of the not-so-good sections<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n<\/a>Lunch along the trail<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a>
\nPlants and flowers along the way<\/em><\/small><\/p>\nAt a Glance:<\/h4>\n
\nType:<\/strong> Point-to-point with loop
\nLength:<\/strong> 5.1 miles
\nRating:<\/strong> Enjoyable
\nDifficulty:<\/strong> Moderate<\/p>\n
\nWeather:<\/strong> 77 and sunny
\nDuration:<\/strong> 3 hours<\/p>\n\n