2019 Mini-Vaca2, Eastern Iowa, Pt 6 - Maquoketa Caves,pt III

We're just about to wrap this bad boy up.

After our brief lunch and inhalation of liquids, we set out to further explore the area of the park that we didn't give much respect to on our previous visit.

So let's got take a look.

Starting up the stairs and looking back down towards the road, parking lot, and ranger station.

Me fams up ahead as I was stopping to take pictures.

We didn't go down into this cave, however, we did meet a little boy at the entrance of it who will figure into our story later.  Apparently, his dad and his little sister were down in there at the time and he didn't want to go.

This is roughly where we start losing the path.  We were thinking that with the storm that had recently passed thru,  the path/trail was not so prominent anymore and we were sort of going where we thought it should be.  We hit a few dead ends...

This is looking mostly straight down about 200 ft.

Notice the steep drop on the left side of the pic.

The trail was getting pretty dicey at this point.

We were becoming tree-huggers the further we went!

Toothpicks for all!!

So we reached what we thought was a wicked dead-end.  This is a bit after the boy that we saw at the tiny cave entrance, his dad and little sister caught up to us.  I thought we had to head back up as I saw a fence in the chest high weeds we were walking thru, however, I didn't go close enough to investigate.  The fence went right up to the "path" but then ended.  So the two families hiked together for the next hour or so.  He was in much better shape than I so it required me to step it up a bit to "stay in the game".

On our way up to what turned out to be a pasture...

The best shot of us all together.

Crossing a creek!  These were a bit interesting.

We witnessed a deer doing some major escape move shortly before seeing these prints in the mud.  The deer, to its credit, went up one the steepest hills that I've ever seen an animal ascend.

Recent washout from the storm.

And finally, we reached the end of our hikes.

What a great adventure!  If you have kids, I would HIGHLY recommend Maquoketa Caves State Park as a destination!  It doesn't suck that the Bluff Lake Catfish Farm is 2 minutes away either!