Fifty First Hikes

07/25/2022

We recently took a 2,000 mile road trip and went all over the place my gorgeous home state, Michigan. We kicked the trip off in Holland because I had a sunset proposal photoshoot scheduled!

As much as we love to travel and I love to take pictures, I decided to branch out a bit late last year. You can read more about the proposal or find out more info about my photography business here: Korey Nunley Photography

This beautiful lighthouse, Big Red is one of Michigan’s most photographed in Holland, and it’s easy to see why!

We also had so REALLY good beer while we were there at Brewery 4 Two 4. If you go, you HAVE to try the Very Berry Pie sour.

03/06/2022

We explored a little more localish this weekend because I had a photoshoot Saturday and we had friends from out of town that we were able to visit with on Sunday.

Paducah is such a fun town to walk around. So much architecture and the murals along the river are so well done.

03/01/2022

“You have to travel far and wide to see a lot of the world’s wonders, but sunsets can be appreciated in every corner of the earth.” – Kimmie Conner

Captured this beautiful scene right down the road from our house.

📸:

02/25/2022

Moss Rock Trail

I think we spent more time trying to find the trailhead than we spent hiking this trail. The link from AllTrails took us to a Publix parking lot. “You have arrived at your destination.” Uhhhh….now mind you, we’d been talking about how amazing their tiramisu is earlier in the day, so maybe the AI was trying to help us out. If so, creeeeeepy.

We were 15 minutes away from the trailhead and after a lot of turnarounds and confusion, we turned off the GPS and started guessing. We found it! In the back of what looked like a school bus/construction equipment parking lot. Good grief. Always an adventure!

And guess what? The trail was just as confusing. It seemed well marked until we got about a mile in. We had fun though. Saw plenty of mossy rocks, a natural bridge, and just enjoyed being together, outside breathing in the fresh air. 🌲🌿

02/21/2022

If you find yourself in Birmingham, Alabama for breakfast, go to Hero Donuts. I mean, we loved them so much that they get their own post. 😍

Jeff got the banana pudding donut, and I got the Boston creme. The filling in both of these were so good that we both could have ate it by the bowlfuls. And that brioche dough?? yuuuummmmmm

02/19/2022

Booooyyyyy did it feel good to get out and get some fresh air!! We’ve been cooped up for a couple of months, recuperating from THE sickness, trying to get our energy and lung capacity back.

You know you’re going to have a fun adventure when the gps takes you to a trailhead that starts in someone’s front yard. You’d think I’d learn to pull up the reviews on AllTrails, but nahh. We like these weird surprises. The trailhead parking is in front of the bull pen, between the house, several tractors, trailers, rolls of hay, and a dog pen. Mr. Ed, the friendly horse, was roaming freely and greeted us as we pulled in the driveway. There’s a sign welcoming donations in this guy’s mailbox for being kind enough to offer parking to Caney Creek Falls. We left a few bucks.

The hike to the falls was nice. Not surprisingly, there was nobody else out on the trail. It was 1.5 miles round trip. Just enough for our comeback trip. The double waterfalls and emerald green pool did not disappoint.

We’d recommend this one. Just watch out for the mama beagle. If you wake her up from her nap on the porch, she’s a bit of an ankle biter.

01/06/2022

At the end of December we took a non-hiking road trip to St. Louis. We really just wanted to immerse ourselves in all things Christmasey and get our exploring on in the city.

Highlights:
• Brewery lights tour at Budweiser. Seriously exceeded all expectations!
• Flight at The Schlafly Tap Room
• Burgers and Christmas Story shake at the Soda Fountain
• Singing Santa’s on the street corner
• Blueberry Donuts at the World’s Fair Donuts

Lowlights:
• We got into an accident within 5 minutes of getting into the city. We were fine, everyone was fine.
• Aside from the decorations, Union Station was meh
• Tornado sirens going off while we (I) tried to capture the “perfect” arch photo. Spoiler alert, I did not. Jeff did. I took like 100 photos, he took 2. Whatever dude. 🤣
• A drunk screaming man in the hall of the hotel kept us from getting any sleep the first night.

Probably not going to become an annual tradition, but we had fun.

12/31/2021

Y’all ever get super busy, but when you stop to think about what you’ve been busy doing, you can’t narrow it down because everything has been such a whirlwind? That’s been us since we got married in October.

And honestly, our hearts are still in Idaho, with all of the beautiful memories that we made there during our hiking wedding adventure.

On the top of our must see list was Sawtooth Lake, and I promise you, it was worth every cold, snowy step to the top of that mountain to see it. The hike was so long that my watch quit, but it was around 11 miles roundtrip. We took thousands of pictures (ok,not quite, but close!). Instagram won’t let us share that many, but these are a few favorites.

Happy New Year!

11/17/2021

Happy National Hiking Day!

~ Crown Point Trail ~

These are a few more pics from our amazing Idaho trip. If there are rocks, we’re gonna play on them! This is our kind of beach day.
Read about the Crown Point Trail on our website:

https://fiftyfirsthikes.com/crown-point-trail/

11/11/2021

Crown Point Trail | Cascade, Idaho

Crown Point Trail genuinely surprised us, in a good way. It’s an old railroad trail with gorgeous lake views, located in Cascade, Idaho.

This was our wedding eve hike. I think we made a pretty good choice.

• Miles: 6
• Out and back route
• Elevation gain: 71’
• Small parking lot across the street from the traikhead
• Restrooms at parking lot
• No water (bring your own)
• Easy
• Cost: free
• Hours 7AM-10PM
• Dog friendly, on a leash

The entire post can be found here:

https://fiftyfirsthikes.com/crown-point-trail/

11/11/2021

Latest blog post, hot off the press! 🗞

Crown Point Trail genuinely surprised us, in a good way. This easy, family-friendly, flat trail has the most amazing views of Cascade Lake with several paths that offer beach access.

11/02/2021

This is the face of someone almost done with a hike that was at least 20° colder than expected, on a path that was more like a Tough Mudder obstacle course than a trail.

Always an adventure, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

If you haven’t read our Duck Lake blog post yet, head over to our website and check it out:

https://fiftyfirsthikes.com/hiking-to-duck-lake-payette-national-forest/

10/29/2021

Did you know that the Payette National Forest in Idaho covers approximately 2.3 million acres? That’s a lot of potential for exploring!

We explored a teeny tiny, but GORGEOUS portion of it on our hike to Duck Lake. Which was duckless, by the way. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Still amazing. 🚫🦆

Read all about it in our latest blog post:

https://fiftyfirsthikes.com/hiking-to-duck-lake-payette-national-forest/

10/27/2021

Hiking to Duck Lake

On our first full day in McCall, Idaho, we decided to go hiking to Duck Lake in the Payette National Forest. We had a few days before our wedding and the longer hike that we wanted to do, so we chose something with medium mileage. Our thinking was that this hike would be fairly easy and we wouldn’t wear ourselves out.

HA!! 😂😂😂

So apparently there are a couple different trailheads for Duck Lake. I swear. We should rename our blog to “Don’t Do What We Did, Do This Instead”…unless you want a killer workout, then we gotcha covered!

• Miles: 4.40
• Elevation gain: 606’
• Cost: free
• Out and back
• Moderate
• Parking on the side of Goose Lake Rd
• No water, bring your own
• No restrooms
• Dog friendly, but we wouldn’t recommend it
• Trail not clearly marked, lots of deadfall

The entire post with trailhead locations, more details, and more photos can be found here:

https://fiftyfirsthikes.com/hiking-to-duck-lake-payette-national-forest/

10/26/2021

We tend to not get in a hurry on our road trips. I can’t even tell you how many times I ask Jeff to pull over so that I can take quick a picture. 📸

Idaho captured our hearts. It’s just beautiful beyond words. Scenic Highway 75 has so many breathtaking views, and a bear that made us laugh every time we passed him on our back and forth from where we stayed in Ketchum to the hikes we did in Stanley.

10/19/2021

We’ve been a little absent on social media for a few weeks, but we‘ve got a pretty good reason! We went on the ultimate adventure and WE GOT MARRIED!!

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

We’ve been hiking all over the place and CAN’T wait to share our stories with you! 🧳🏔

After the honeymoon.

Photo credit:

10/02/2021

Turkey Run State Park | Indiana

How cool are suspension bridges? Jeff wanted to jump up and down on it to see how much he could get it to move, and I was gripping the sides checking out the construction and security of the cables while debating on if we’d survive a fall into the creek below. 🤷🏻‍♀️😂

But we crossed it like 10 times in the 2 days that we were there because it WAS fun.

Read about the hikes we did, and places we stopped along the way on our latest blog post.

https://fiftyfirsthikes.com/hiking-in-turkey-run-state-park-day-1/

10/01/2021

On a recent road trip to Indiana, we made a few little detours to see some sights along the way.

One of them was the Silo Mural in Greencastle, IN.

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚖𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚕𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝙸𝚗𝚍𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚊. 𝙵𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝟸𝟶𝟷𝟿, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚒𝚕𝚘𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚅𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜 𝙷𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚠𝚊𝚢 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙷𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚠𝚊𝚢 𝟸𝟹𝟷. 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝙿𝚞𝚝𝚗𝚊𝚖 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚢’𝚜 𝚊𝚐𝚛𝚒𝚌𝚞𝚕𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚎….

See our latest blog post for more info, as well as see the other stops that we made. 🚘

https://fiftyfirsthikes.com/hiking-in-turkey-run-state-park-day-1/

09/30/2021

Apparently we found a “bucket list” mushroom on one of our hikes in southern Indiana.
👸🏻🍑

Definitely one of the prettier mushrooms that we’ve ever seen. We just recently bought an identification book, and try to name different species while we’re out hiking. We’re no where near comfortable enough that we’d eat anything that we’ve identified, but it’s still pretty fun. We left this one for others to enjoy too.

Check out the full story here: https://fiftyfirsthikes.com/hiking-in-turkey-run-state-park-day-1/

09/27/2021

It smelled like fall and felt like summer when we spent our Sunday hiking the Cumberland River Bicentennial Trail in Ashland City, Tennessee.

🍁🍂🌼🍁🍂🌼🍁🍂🌼

• Miles: 13.53�• Out-and-back course�• Flat! Elevation gain: 80’�• Partially paved- stroller and wheelchair accessibke�• Wheelchair accessible porta-pots�Trash cans�• Picnic areas and benches along course �• No water- bring your own�• Dog friendly�• Parking lot for 10-15 vehicles

…more details on our latest blog post:

https://fiftyfirsthikes.com/hiking-the-cumberland-river-bicentennial-trail/

09/24/2021

ᴄᴜᴍʙᴇʀʟᴀɴᴅ ʀɪᴠᴇʀ ʙɪᴄᴇɴᴛᴇɴɴɪᴀʟ ᴛʀᴀɪʟ | ᴀsʜʟᴀɴᴅ ᴄɪᴛʏ, ᴛɴ

We found a hobbit house on our hike! Nobody was home though. 😞

📝 New blog post up!

https://fiftyfirsthikes.com/hiking-the-cumberland-river-bicentennial-trail/

09/10/2021

Never stop taking risks. Just keep reaching. ~Ryan Eggold

HAPPY FRIDAY!

09/02/2021

Lincoln State Park

Do you know how tall you are in Abraham Lincoln years? We do!

We love when we get to hike and also take in a history lesson. 📚

Heritage Trail:
• Lake Trail
• John Carter Trail
• Sarah L. Grigsby Trail
• James Gentry Trail
• Mr. Lincoln’s Neighborhood Walk
• Weber Lake Trail

See our website for more info —>
____________________
www.fiftyfirsthikes.com
____________________

09/01/2021

Hiking the Lincoln Heritage Trail | Lincoln State Park

Located 39 miles from Evansville, IN, Lincoln State Park offers some pretty great hiking opportunities. Walk where a young Abraham Lincoln walked, while learning more about his and his family’s lives.

Take in beautiful lake views, and maybe even climb to the top of a fire tower. (See our previous post.)

If you’re looking for hiking in Indiana, you’ll want to add the Lincoln Heritage Trail to your list.

Also, Jeff’s ok. We get lost easy. 😂😉

For more tips, head over to our website:

www.fiftyfirsthikes.com

08/31/2021

Lincoln Lake

📍 Lincoln State Park, Indiana

These lake views were pretty, but those geese did NOT want to share them with us. We had to walk in a grassy path along the lake before going back into the trail in the woods, and they hissed at us, showing those sharp little teeth, the entire time.

*tiptoe speed walk* Niiiiice little birdie….😂

We’ll tell you more about our trip later this week. In the meantime, check out www.fiftyfirsthikes.com for some of our other adventures!

08/27/2021

Look at these amazing views from the top of the Eiffel Tower!

Juuuuussst kidding.

We found a fire tower while we were out hiking the Lincoln Heritage Trail in Illinois. We saw the sign from the main trail and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to check it out. Neither of us had ever climbed up in one before. No surprise there for me (I’m working on my fear of heights), but I couldn’t believe that Jeff hadn’t, being a firefighter and all. It made it even more exciting, getting to do something like this with him. 🚒🧑🏼‍🚒

I had to stop a few times and give my shaky knees a pep talk, but it was totally worth it. I think it’s important to challenge yourself and face fears head on. These were the best views of the entire hike.

08/19/2021

In honor of National Potato Day, we’re throwing it back to when we hiked in a park with rocks that looked like giant potatoes!

Click below to read the post. ⬇️🥔

Elephant Rocks State Park- just 73 miles from St. Louis. Definitely a must for you Ozark to do list! From the second that I saw these giant granite boulders on my Instagram feed, a few years ago, I just knew that we’d have to go someday...

08/18/2021

ᴄᴀɴᴀʟ ʟᴏᴏᴘ | ʟᴀɴᴅ ʙᴇᴛᴡᴇᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀᴋᴇs

We feel really lucky to live right down the road from such a beautiful National Recreation Area. On the Canal Loop, there are times when you feel like you’re miles away from everyone and everything, and it’s just you and the forest.
🌲🍄

But, then you walk under the bridge that goes over the Barkley Canal, and you can hear traffic. Sometimes I get irritated when I can hear civilization while we’re out hiking, but not on this hike. 11 miles is tough in Kentucky humidity. Totally worth it, but tough. 😅

See our website for the full review:

𝐰𝐰𝐰.𝐅𝐢𝐟𝐭𝐲𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐇𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐬.𝐜𝐨𝐦