Indiana's Best Day Hiking Trails

Whether you're a novice hiker or an experienced distance hiker, Indiana offers a hiking trail for everyone's ability. Here are a few of my favorites and you can check out lots more at the Trails.com website which lists hiking trails all over the country. The three I'm highlighting, I've had personal experience hiking so can vouch for their merits.

Turkey Run State Park

Turkey Run is still one of my favorite state parks to hike in. The combination of woodland trails, steep cavern runs, and Sugar Creek running through it all, makes Turkey Run a hiker's wonderland. The trails vary from short 1 mile down to the creek and back to the parking lot, and even that trail has it's challenging moments, but it's short and they don't last long.

My favorite trails at Turkey Run are on the opposite side of Sugar Creek. You cross the suspension bridge over Sugar Creek and enter a sandstone canyon area that looks like something out of a western cowboy movie. Trails meander up and around and through the caverns and down into a creek bed where the trail criss-crosses the creek. Depending upon the time of year, prepare to get wet! In the fall, the creekbed is generally dry however, in most spots and you can hike the entire trail without getting wet. It's a challenging trail but not difficult. On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being extremely difficult, I would give the Turkey Run Creek trail a 6.

Turkey Run is located in Crawfordsville, Indiana about an hour's drive from Indianapolis.

Clifty Falls State Park

Clifty Falls State Park ranks second on my favorite day hiking trails. I like the combination of water, cliffs, and woodlands when I hike and Clifty Falls has all three in abundance, plus waterfalls! If you find the right combination of Clifty Falls trails you can spend about 4 hours hiking the 8 miles of looped trails, passing by four of the five waterfalls and all along the Clifty Creeks steep canyon bed with 300 fit walls surrounding you.

It's pretty cool! Not the Grand Canyon by any shot, but still neat for southern Indiana. And make sure you check out the small cave on Trail 2. You can enter, slippery and wet but I can picture Tom Sawyer exploring it!

Clifty Falls is in Madison Indiana and the Inn at the Park accepts reservations and is a wonderful retreat after a long day hiking. Clifty Falls Inn can be checked out here.

Three Lakes Loop Trail

Three Lakes Loop in Morgan Monroe State Forest is my third favorite hiking trail in Indiana. It gets its name from the steep ravines, creeks and lakes that lie along it's path. At this time there are only two lakes, but there used to be three. Beanblossom has dried up, but Bryant Creek and Cherry remain welcome sites along the trail.

You can dip your tired feet and find comfortable resting spots at each. At 7 miles, this trail is definitely a long day trip, so packing a lunch is essential and several bottles of water. The trail should probably not be attempted alone as it heads into what might be considered Indiana's biggest backwoods areas in Martinsville and Brown County. It's easy to get sidetracked and lose your way, so having a good trail map and a compass along might be useful for the first time hiker on this trail.

Morgan-Monroe State Forest covers 24,000 acres in Monroe and Morgan Counties, close to Bloomington and Martinsville. The land is covered with steep ridges and forests and deep valleys and you can read all about the park here.

Now, I'm off to pack for this weekend's hike in a new area, The Adventure Hiking Trail in Corydon. Make sure you wear good hiking shoes, take plenty of water, a cellphone, and a hiking stick just for fun. Dress comfortably in layers, and let someone know where you're hiking or better yet, take a hiking buddy along!

Resources:

Personal Experience

State Parks http://www.stateparks.com/morgan_monroe.html

Trails.com http://www.trails.com/catalog_trail.aspx?trailid=HGM055-033

Turkey Run State Park website http://www.turkeyrunstatepark.com/