Clifty Falls State Park

This past Sunday, while we were still down in Madison, Indiana (part of our Jefferson County tour), we visited Clifty Falls State Park. I had seen many, many pictures of this park from my friends who regularly visit that part of the state, and I knew it was beautiful. And I feared we wouldn't get to FULLY enjoy the beauty because it was supposed to rain (storm, really) the ENTIRE day. We knew we couldn't control it, so we alternated between holding our breath and praying hard, and my goodness. God gave us a BEAUTIFUL day to enjoy His creation in ways we never had. We were so, so grateful.

If you ever decide to go there, they do have an inn on the grounds, but it was a bit above our budget, so we didn't stay there. I've heard really good things, though! Also an interesting note...this park doesn't have trash cans or bathrooms scattered throughout like most other ones we've been to. I figured that would make it really litter-filled, but I have to say it was the cleanest state park I've seen. When we stood on bridges and looked down into creeks, I didn't see any cups or chip bags or anything. Interesting! I do wish they would have had more bathrooms because it was a hot day and I wanted to drink way more water than I did, but I knew I couldn't have bathroom breaks. (Nine miles on two bottles of water on an 80+ degree day worked out okay, but I was nervous!)

We started at the observation tower, which I did climb, even though they scare me to death, but it was a bit too foggy to see much:

Six hours later, during take #2, it was much more scenic:

I took a bazillion pictures and won't subject you to them all, but here were some of the moments we encountered that day. I will add that this was the most rugged hiking I've ever done. I know compared to what some of you do, this is NOTHING, but for me, it was rugged. And many of the trails were mostly rock, and the rocks were wet from recent rain, so we did a lot of slipping and sliding and slogging through mud. My shoes look GREAT! :) And many of the trails were straight up hill. STEEP! Toward the end, Ryan found me a good walking stick, but I did most of it very carefully.

There were definitely lots of cliffs and falls throughout!

HUGE!

(I was too chicken to climb up where Ryan was on that one. That was the only thing I wish I would have tried that I didn't.)

We came upon this tunnel, which was really a cave with two entrances. They said it was manmade, but they also said bats live in there, so I don't care who made it or what it's called. It's a cave. You could ALMOST stand up straight inside. Especially toward the middle, you had to crouch to get through. Someone told us it's about 600 feet long, and when you're in the middle, there's a bit of a bend, and you can't see light at either end. The ground was made entirely of rocks covered in water, so it was pretty much all my fears wrapped up into one. But of course Ryan wanted to try it, so we did. I quoted a LOT of scripture and did a LOT of praying.

 WE DID IT!!!!!

 I only slipped once and Ryan hit his head on the top once, but otherwise, no humans or cameras were injured in the cave trek!

 I did the rugged one, thankyouverymuch.

 It was called Cake Rock. Yes please.

We crossed a couple of creeks (like IN the creek).

 The delicate art of washing mud off your shoes WITHOUT falling off the rocks.

 He ran up the hills.

 I went a bit more slowly.

But oh, what a fun day! We saw people along the way, but for the most part, we had the trails to ourselves. It was warm, but the trees provided nice shade. We saw NO snakes. The waterfalls were stunning. It was a worship-filled day and a great experience to have together. Loved this park!