A natural tunnel sounded like a perfect destination hike for the day. This 7.5 mile—advertised; 8.25 mile—reality hike lived up to its promise of seeing varied habitats and wildlife, an old cemetery, and a 300 foot natural, S-shaped tunnel, reinforced with some aggregate and rebar. Our entire hike was accompanied by the sounds of cicadas, being loud enough sometimes to get decibel level warnings on our watches.

We made several stream crossings along the trail to the tunnel, and inside the tunnel as well. Without our headlamps, iPhone flashlights worked well to light up the middle of the tunnel.

We ate a snack on the other side, then headed back to the trailhead. Tony saw the shy little box turtle about the cross the trail. He looked at us for a bit and let me take his picture before leaving.

Near the end of our hike, we heard a different insect call that had what Tony described as a Doppler effect sound. He recorded it here.

We didn’t use bug spray before the hike, but should have. The western loop back had some areas of tall grass on the trail. We used a combination of Off wipes and dental floss to get the ticks loose from Tony’s legs. “Scads” was Tony’s number estimate. The small ones (nymph stage) were easy to remove, but a few big ones were more stubborn. We shook out socks and shoes and bagged those before getting in the van with the cats. They have flee and tick protection, but we hope the blood suckers were all left behind at the picnic table near the trailhead!