Canyons of Western Indiana

August 28, 2009 by admin.

Photo Trip Notes

This week, I decided at the last minute to explore canyons in Western Indiana.  This included Turkey Run State Park which I’ve visited many times before.  Don’t get me wrong, I really like shooting photos at Turkey Run and I have a lot of unfinished work there.  I just wanted to find some new destinations in the area to help keep things fresh.

I really love shooting canyon photos.  After doing some research, I was surprised to find out that there are several public accessible areas near Turkey Run.  I wanted to do some exploring to see if I could put more dimension to the photography in the area.

My route from Southeastern Indiana to Turkey Run took me west out of Indianapolis through Danville.  Highway 36 west is the traditional way to get to all points in Parke county.  But on this occasion, I veered northwest out of Danville on Highway 234 following instructions from my trusty GPS navigator.  This is a great way to see some of Indiana’s finest farmland and small towns.

Arriving at Turkey Run campground just before noon, I quickly set up camp staking a claim to my own little territory for the next few days.  I found out from the park service that while the campground was only fractionally filled during the week, it is highly recommended to make advanced reservations if you intend to stay Thursday through Saturday night.

Pine Hills Nature Preserve:

First on the photo agenda was to locate and explore Pine Hills Nature Preserve.  My research found that it is located about a mile past the entrance of Shades State Park which is about a fifteen to twenty minute easy drive from Turkey Run.  This was a bit of a mystery for me as I grew up in the area and was quite familiar with Shades State Park and nearby Sugar Creek.  I had traveled the highway access to the area and didn’t remember anything about a Nature Preserve.  Pine Hills Nature Preserve, being the first property designated as such, was established in 1969 after being designated as a “Registered Natural Landmark” by the US Department of the Interior in 1968.  It was apparently purchased from the Hasselman family and given to the State of Indiana in 1961.  Since I left the area in 1970, I now understand why I had never heard of the property.

There is one trail heading into the preserve which doubles as a service road to the first of four “razor-back” ridges formed by Clifty and Indian creeks.  The approach trail is about a quarter mile in length sloping very gently down to the top Turkey Back Bone.  Along the way, you’ll find a plentiful assortment of wildflowers, deep-woods mushrooms and toadstools, and an abundance of bird species chirping wildly from far overhead.  You descend into the canyons via well constructed steps along a well marked path.  This is not a place for those afraid of heights.  While the ridge is relatively wide and there are plenty of hand rails along most of the descent, there are a few places only about four feet wide and open to a sheer drop down the nearly two hundred foot ravine.  It’s good if you are afraid of heights because you can use that fear to keep you well centered on the trail and away from the areas you shouldn’t venture.  If you are terrified of heights then you should just enjoy the upper part of the preserve and forget about hiking down into the canyons.

The trip down consists of seventy-seven steps to a small rest landing with a bench.  The steps narrow at this point (one-way road) and drop another ninety-two steps to the canyon floor.  The steps are extremely well constructed with hand rails on both sides.  I recommend taking your time going down the ridge and enjoy the view – going up, you’;; probably be focused other things like getting oxygen into your lungs, that lovely burning sensation in your legs, and the five gallons of sweat dripping down your nose.  The bottom of the steps deposits you into Clifty Creek canyon.  To the right you go upstream and to the left you travel downstream to the confluence of Clifty and Indian creeks.  Clifty is a tributary to Indian Creek and apparently the local drainage run.  Indian Creek is much larger and travels several miles from the south.  About a half mile downstream from the confluence, Indian Creek meets up with Sugar Creek – the big dog in the area.  For all the locals, Sugar Creek is the backbone of the summer water recreation.  Canoeing, kayaking, and water tubing are extremely popular from Crawfordsville down to Turkey Run State Park.  Sugar Creek eventually merges with the Wabash River just north of Montezuma, Indiana flowing under several covered bridges and passing countless sandstone rock formations along the way.

In Clifty Creek canyon you’ll find steep walls of shale-like stone toward the bottom capped by a thick top layer of traditional sandstone.  The creek bed appears to be mostly solid sandstone rippled by the constant gentile flowing sheet of water.  I only briefly explored Clifty Creek upstream leaving that task to another time.

Following Clifty Creek downstream I passed the foot of Devils Backbone – another high ridge formed by erosion of Clifty Creek on one side and Indian Creek on the other.  The ridge is about seventy-five feet above the creek beds with sheer walls of very solid sandstone on each side.  The narrowness of the ridge can only be appreciated from the top which is accessible by two paths – Clifty Creek access and Indian Creek access.  Unless you are part mountain goat, I recommend the Indian Creek access.  The Clifty Creek path requires some climbing skills to scramble up the steep slope.  The Indian Creek access, while no cake-walk, is more of a steep hike than a hand-hold grasping climb.  This is especially important if you’re carrying a 4×5 field camera, tripod, and load of film holders.  

Plan on going up to the top of Devils Backbone.  At first glance you’ll think the ridge is man-made but it is a solid chunk of sandstone – very impressive.  Another word of caution, there are no hand holds or railings so pay attention to what you are doing and where you walk.  The drop off is sheer and unforgiving.  Be sure to spend time looking at the carvings in the rock.

At the confluence of the two creeks, the sandstone cliffs exhibit wind erosion at its finest.  While taking a shot of light reflecting off the stream bed from directly under the cliff, a welcomed cooling breeze worked its way through the canyon causing me to step out from under my dark cloth for a quick break.  I noticed a fine dry mist coming from above.  It was actually sand dropping down on me and my camera – not really a big deal.  But it was kind of interesting being in the middle of the process that created all the exotic formations in the stone above me.

There is one more thing about the rocks in these canyons.  The lower shale like stone leaves a rubble field of flat jagged edge rocks all over the place.  There are other round and odd shaped boulders that clearly look out of place.  In fact, they are out of place.  These are from Canada brought down by the glaciers that pretty much leveled the northern half on Indiana.  There many examples of granite and heavily laden quartz composites.  I found several pieces of geodes throughout the stream bed.  For anyone interested in geology, this is a terrific laboratory to find a wide variety of rocks from up north.  (Note:  This is a nature preserve so removal of samples from the property is prohibited.)

I spoke with a couple of locals who told me that there was another sandstone cliff downstream of the confluence.  On my next visit, I like to explore Indian Creek more and perhaps follow it to where it meets up with Sugar Creek.

Boulder Field in Indian Creek

Clifty Creek

Indian Creek

 

Sandstone Cliffs

 

Fall Creek Gorge Nature Preserve:

Fall Creek is about thirty-five miles North of Turkey Run on highway 41 near Attica, Indiana – close enough to visit while staying at Turkey Run or stopping at, in route, if traveling from the North.

I think this property is one of Indiana’s best kept secrets.  It’s difficult to find unless you are looking for it.  It’s not all that well marked.  There is very little parking at the access to the property and parking on the county access road is prohibited.  But with all that, this is a must visit location for anyone interested in shooting photos in the canyons.

Like I said, there is very limited parking at the access (maybe eight cars or so if everyone lines up just right.)  The trail into the canyon is easy to walk with a short set of well made steps near the bottom.  The steps drop you off into the intersection of two creeks.  As you arrive at the bottom, the creek on the right is the main water shed while the left is less significant.  The small creek does have an interesting sandstone bed that is very wide and contains widely distributed ripples making a sort of huge swamp cooler as the water forms a curtain across the width of the canyon.  It’s noticeably cooler and you’ll feel a slight breeze as the cool humid air slides down into the main stream below.

Across the smaller stream bed at the bottom of the steps, there is another set of steps leading up the opposite canyon wall – I’ll come back that path in a minute.  Just around the right side of the other steps you follow the main canyon upstream.  There you will find the most prominent feature of the Preserve – the so-called pot holes.  The best way to describe these is that they are like a cascade of hot tubs carved out of stone – one spilling down into the next.  Most holes are two to five feet across and appear to be three to four feet deep.  I called this the pot-hole canyon (my own identification).  It is very picturesque and is extremely challenging to shoot with a large format.  While rigging my 4×5 and tripod putting one leg in the swift water, one leg braced against a rock and the third grasping for something solid in mid air, I vowed to return with my DSLR and an array of wide angle to telephoto lenses.

Now back to that set of steps up the other side of the small canyon.  They lead to a path that takes you to above the pot-hole cascades.  You have to be extremely careful as there are no rails and footing is challenging at times.  The view though is spectacular!  Continuing along the ridge you end up several hundred yards up stream above a small beach at the foot of a waterfall.  The path eventually leads you down the ridge arriving at the small beach. 

Heading downstream from the steps you can easily walk the wide stream bed avoiding the many smaller pot-hole and crevices.  Be careful as you walk this area.  There are several holes that will get you wet up past your knees if you accidentally lose your footing.  A hundred yards or so downstream is the water slide and ole’ swimming hole – again, names of my own invention.  The main stream cascades across smooth sandstone creating a water slide that dumps into a fairly large pool that appears to be about ten feet deep or more.

While setting on the bank making my notes, I looked up and saw a doe and her fawn in the middle of the creek watching me.  I asked them if they would mind holding still for a few minutes while I got my 4×5 set up.  They apparently declined and ambled across the creek into the trees on the opposite bank.  I’m never going anywhere again without my DSLR!

I have a final note about this canyon.  Bright and sunny days are not a good time for large format photography.  That is unless you can work around constantly changing hot spots created by the sun filtering through the trees.  I arrived about 10:00 AM (August) thinking that the sun was still low enough to stay out of the canyon.  I think a cloudy mid day would be the best lighting for this area.  I’ve shot late afternoon and early mornings in canyons like these.  While the lighting is what I call extremely mellow and very desirable, the heavy humidity and cooling temperatures keep fogging the equipment – including the lenses.

 

“Pot-Holes”

 

 

 

Portland Arch Nature Preserve:

Portland Arch is the only natural land bridge that I’m aware of in Indiana.  The Preserve is near Fountain, Indiana just south of Attica.  From Turkey Run it’s just a little more than a thirty minute drive.  There are signs clearly leading you to the Preserve from highway 41. 

There are two large parking areas at each end (North and South) of the canyon.  The closet to the arch is the North lot.  From the parking lot, you’ll find a path that quickly comes to a fork.  I almost always follow the right path in these situations.  It turned out to be the correct path as I was hoping to go directly to the bottom of the canyon and on to the arch.  As I didn’t follow the left path, I can only assume that it follows the top of the ridge.

Good News / Bad News.  The good news is that there are no steps to climb down into the canyon.  The bad news is that you really could use the steps.  Decent into the canyon is in two stages.  The first does have sturdy hand rails following a path maintained by the local tree root system.  The second stage is a more difficult as you are scrambling down a few well placed rocks and more helpful tree roots – but without the hand rails.  Carrying any amount of equipment will test your stamina.  However, by taking one’s time, it’s very doable.  On my next visit, I’ll try the south access to see if it’s any better.  The trail at the bottom of the canyon is very well maintained with several bridges and high quality steps leading you parallel to the creek bed.

Upon arriving at the bottom of the canyon, follow the creek downstream until it takes a sharp left turn into the rock cliff.  This is actually the back side of the arch.  Walking through the arch you’ll find yourself in the main water shed canyon heading up stream to the South.

There is some kind of very old concrete structure that might be the remnants of some a mill or water wheel.

Walnut trees are everywhere.  As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up in this part of the state.  I don’t recall having seen such a large concentration of walnut trees anywhere else.

The sandstone walls appear to be much older than those in Turkey Run or the other Nature Preserves.  It might be that they are of the shale like structure and just appear to be older. 

 

 

 

Turkey Run:

Even though I was camping at Turkey Run’s campground, I only spent a couple of hours shooting pictures in the Punch Bowl canyon.  On a previous trip I had visualized getting some low light long exposures of water flowing through the sandstone run just below the bowl.  That’s about all I had time for in Turkey Run during this three day trip. 

I decided to make a second trip back to Pine Hills on my way home to climb to the top of Devil’s Backbone. 

I guess the final note to this story, is that while I’ve made several photo shoots to Turkey Run, the area is in no way getting stale, I’ve got a lot more now to explore and a lot more pictures to take.

 

 

Location data for your GPS or other navigation aid:

Turkey Run Campground:     N 29° 52.721’, W 87° 12.734’

Fall Creek Gorge Nature Preserve:     N 40° 20.301’, W87° 19.002’

Portland Arch Nature Preserve:     N 40° 12.861’, W 87° 19.857’

Pine Hills Nature Preserve:    N 39° 56.269’, W 87° 03.510’

 

Photo Disclaimer:

I didn’t have access to my DSLR and was only traveling with my 4×5 field camera shooting black and white film.  I used my cell phone camera to help me with my notes on the trip.  All photos in this report are taken with my phone.

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