I dunno, Cathy.
On one hand you bi...eh, complain about not having anything available. And in the next breath you tell us about all these wonderful artisan places that surround you.
I mean even with gas prices what they are, what's a 40 minute drive? Heck, I go that far just to buy flour at the mill.
Speaking of which, I don't reckon Nora Mill is all that far from you. It's right on the way to Brasstown Bald (talking about a nice drive in the country), just outside Alpine Helen.
As to us all getting together, let's see. I'm guessing you're about 5 hours from me (Atlanta is 5 1/2 Chatanooga 4 1/2), which puts you 7 hours from Janie and about another hour to Cole.
As to the book, it is most emphatically not thorough. It's part of a series, "America's Best Day Hikes," and only includes 100 hikes, and we were limited to only two trails in any one "park". Plus there were some other restrictions.
At the time we wrote it (six years ago) there were no books looking at Kentucky's hiking trails from a state-wide viewpoint (there are several now, none as good as ours). There were several site-specific books, which served those locations, but nothing that looked at the whole state.
I would love to do a follow up book, something on the order of "Long Loops & Overnight Hikes," to flesh it out.
To put it in perspective for you, there are about 2,200 miles of hiking trails in Kentucky, including two or three (depends on how you define 'em) long trails. Crowning jewel of those is the Sheltowee Trace, 259-miles through the heart of the Daniel Boone National Forest. There used to be the Jenny Wiley Trail, another 180 miles. And you could hike a 3-mile connector and do the whole thing as a single trail---roughly 445 miles without crossing your own footprints. Unfortunately, the Jenny Wiley was closed, primarily for lack of use.
I never understood why, when we had that as a true wilderness experience, folks would flock from here to the Appalachian Trail---which is like walking on a superhighway.
Newest of the long trails is the 125-mile Pine Mountain Trail, which was only a dream when we did the book. But, in addition to the Jenny Wiley, we have lost the Redbird Crest Trail---a 56 mile loop, which, due to lack of use by hikers, was converted into an ATV trail.
There are so many underused trails it's scary. Take the surface trails of Mammoth Cave: about 70 miles of trails, criss-crossing 50,000 acres.
Or the trails in Land Between The Lakes, including the aply named 60-mile Long Trail---which you can hike end-to-end, or create your own loops using other trails.
Then there's........ Well, I reckon you're getting the idea. A hundred day hikes barely scratches the surface----although I did walk more than 400 miles researching them.
