Scouting out locations in Big Ridge State Park

I went for a nice long hike this afternoon, just me and the dog, in Big Ridge State Park. I have already found all the geocaches in this park, there are only a few, but the park has a bunch of trails that I wanted to explore, some with interesting stories and history. We started up the east half of the Ghost House Loop trail, passing the first of what was to be many old cemeteries. Then we took the Big Valley Trail up and over Pinnacle Ridge, and down into Dark Hollow. Next we hiked the Indian Rock Trail, which is a big loop in the Northwest corner of the park. I enjoyed this trail a lot, since it had ridgetop hiking with views of the lake and mountains through the trees (forget about it in summer time). It also had some interesting historical features such as memorial plaques at Indian Rock and Sharp's Station, the 2nd oldest settlement west of the Appalachians. Parts of the trail seemed overgrown by briers though, making me think it doesn't get much traffic. The spur trail to Sharp's station was a nice little stroll, passing a frozen waterfall and campsite before opening up to the location of the old fort.

After completing the loop, we had enough time to explore the eastern half of the Dark Hollow Trail, which was an old county road. This was much easier hiking, but not as scenic, along the bottom of the hollow. The trail ends abruptly before reaching any view of the lake, which seemed funny to me, we continued further along until we could see the lake, but the views of the lake from here were not that great, since it is basically just a narrow inlet. Along this trail I also stumbled across a tent. When I first caught sight of it, I paused to leash the dog, and call out so that I wouldn't surprise any campers/squatters. As I got closer, I saw that it was only a tent and fly hung up in some branches. The tent looks almost new, and couldn't have been out here long, but there were no signs of any poles. I packed it up and carried it out with me anyways, since it would just become unsightly trash if left out there.

For the return trip we took the Big Valley Trail again back over to the junction with the Ghost Loop, but took the other half of the loop. Supposedly there is the ghostly outline of a house here, but I sure didn't notice anything. All in all we tallied almost 10 miles in 5 hours. Not bad at all. And there is a lot of potential for geocache placements out here. I'll ahve to contact the State Rangers to see what I can get permission to do, but I'm thinking about a traditional out by Sharp's Station, a multi that tours the Indian Rock Loop, and a puzzle cache out the east end of Dark Hollow. And I'll have to look into the story behind the Ghost House loop, it could make a really spooky night-cache/Wherigo.