Yesterday I went on a super fun hike – my third trip to the Lost Creek Falls State Natural Area here in Tennessee. My first trip was on Day 24 of this low carb challenge, and the second trip was on Day 40 with my sister.
I’ve been wanting to go back and climb to the very top of the waterfall at Lost Creek to see what was up there… and where the water was coming from. 🙂 So yesterday (Day 87) Joe agreed to go exploring with me!
I started the day with a healthy breakfast of cottage cheese, pecans & strawberries – my usual “Low Carb Cereal” which is a great source of nutrition & healthy fats.
I learned the hard way on Day 66 just how bad carbs & sugar can TANK your energy on an ambitious hike! 😛
Before we hit Lost Creek, we did some off-trail hiking at Rylander Cascades.
Neither of us had ever seen the cascades, and since it was close we decided to get in a little extra sweat! 🙂
That’s a glow-in-the-dark waterproof CaliCase phone protector around my neck.
Once we got to the Rylander Cascades there was tons of fun rock climbing to do! 🙂 I find rock climbing and hiking to be GREAT exercise, simply for the range of muscle use required. Plus it’s FUN!!
Of course, getting back down always proves more challenging than climbing up. 😛
We packed a healthy low carb picnic for the day including: cucumbers (w/salt & pepper), almonds, pecans, cheese and salami:
We decided to hike up to the top of Lost Creek Falls and have lunch… with a view. 🙂 There’s a trail leading up to the top of the waterfall, but from there we hiked off-trail and upstream to get to the very top…
This required navigating HUGE boulders, slick wet mossy waterways, and pretty much climbing and trekking through snake and bear territory – lol.
We got close to the top and decided to break for a healthy lunch on a big flat mossy rock. It was the perfect spot! We had an amazing view, some warm sunshine, and a cooler breeze – coming out of what had to be a large cave up above. 🙂
Sure enough, we finally get to the top of Lost Creek Falls… and there is an amazingly huge cave there! 🙂 We knew it had to be a fairly good sized cave because it felt like air conditioning coming out of it.
It was a large cave indeed, and it was FULL OF SPIDERS. 😯 lol, eek!
After that we hiked about halfway down and took a break above Lost Creek Falls.
I was filling my water bottle in the natural underground springs along the way, so I tracked my water intake like this:
lol – That’s serious dedication to tracking. 😛 Each mark is 8 ounces of water. I don’t know if you can see all the scratches on my arm, those were from briars. Briars and ticks were the worst thing we ran into on the hike though. 🙂
Here I am sitting over Lost Creek Falls, on the edge of a 75 foot drop off to the pool below. Yes that made me dizzy! 😛
On our way out Joe spotted a wild blackberry bush and we stopped to pick a few for a sweet low carb treat. 🙂
The berries are just starting to get ripe here in Tennessee, so July will definitely hold a lot of fun berry picking ventures! These blackberries were especially sweet – much sweeter and juicier than the frozen blackberries I bought over the winter.
I had a FUN day and got GREAT exercise hiking and rock climbing. And I finally know what’s at the top of Lost Creek Falls: a cave full of spiders! 🙂 LOL. It was a really cool (and very large) cave to explore though.
I have one more adventure to Lost Creek that I want to make this summer, and that’s to find the waterfall at the back of the Lost Creek Cave.
It will be a cool & wet hike of a good couple of hours in pitch dark, so we’re saving that one for later in the season when it’s too hot to do anything else. 🙂
These are my summer hiking & outdoor adventure essentials:
I’m totally addicted to my Fitbit. 🙂 I use the Fitbit Charge HR and it’s the ONLY thing that finally motivated me to get moving and get more active! I love my new CaliCase Waterproof Phone Case too, which is great for using your phone around water. You can even use it and take great photos while it’s IN the case.
And of course I’m partial to my Northside Burke II Water Sandals (yes, they make them for men too!). They’re the perfect “summer adventure shoes” for hiking, walks, creek wading and kayaking. 🙂
I hope you enjoyed this fun photo tour of my third Lost Creek Falls hike.
I’m having a blast on my “local travels” and fun summer adventures, and it’s really helping me tone up – fast! Check Google for your local area and search for things like: hiking, state natural area, state park, waterfall, etc (along with your town, county and state) to see what you can find to get into. 🙂
Best,
Lynn Terry,
aka @LowCarbTraveler
Leave a Reply