Waterfalls and Camping Birthday Adventure

For my farmer's birthday we headed to the woods to explore and camp. Just across the border to our north is Dupont State Forest full of beautiful waterfalls with very easy to moderate hikes to view them all. We managed to see 3 of them in just 2 hours of hiking! From the visitor's center we hiked to the cool old Covered Bridge that crosses right above High Falls before hiking down the trail to see the falls themselves.

High Falls was the first one along the trail and it lived up to it's name! 120 feet high and the recent rains had it full.

There was an access trail to the base of High Falls that we decided to visit on our way back to the visitor center later in the day. It proved a bit too slick and covered in logs to climb for us to make it too close with Daisy. Poor girl fell into the muck.

Next up along the trail was Triple Falls. There was a stairway that took us down to the base of two of the three falls before we hiked further down the trail to see all three falls at a different vantage point.

While Hooker Falls has it's own parking lot access point that technically makes it an easier hike, we decided to go over land to get to the trail head. As the ranger told us, it was a steep downhill trail that we knew was going to be painful on the way back up! Hooker Falls was not as large, but it had a very popular swimming hole below it that was full of people of all ages. After we made it halfway back to the visitor's center, we paused for lunch on a nice flat rock near Triple Falls.

We arrived at our campground and were greeted by the friendly couple that runs it. I loved their sense of humor and whimsy around the place. The trail to our campsite was "Wizard's Walk" and our bathhouse was named "Full Moon." The couple had done an excellent job spacing the campsites to promote privacy while still being easily accessible to amenities. They even provided wheelbarrows to aid in camp set up. Right when we arrived the sky darkened and the thunder started echoing off the mountains. Nathan and I were super thankful we had practiced setting up our tent last week, because we got it set up in record time and our things tucked safely inside for what sounded like quite the storm! ...turns out we barely got a sprinkle in the end, but we had a lovely time talking and reading before grilling up pork chops, fried potatoes, and our first harvest of green beans! The damp make it tricky to get the fire going, but the lid of our camping supply tub worked efficiently as a bellow.

After the fest, we spent rest of the evening reading and deep in discussion. We wrapped up with a cup of tea and the bonfire liturgy before turning in for the night.

Up early per usual, we had a yummy bacon and egg breakfast before cleaning and packing up our campsite and heading home. We wrapped up the weekend being tourists in our own town with some ice cream and poking our head in a few shops. Oh, and a really good long nap!