Kentucky Falls

For Labor Day today we took a family hike with the Heiner family, friends of ours from church. The destination--Kentucky Falls in the Oregon coastal range. Doug and Terry have been raving about this hike from their 50-miler this summer. One day of their hike they covered 10 miles along this same trail. Today we did a modified version of the hike, hiking in 2 miles to the falls and 2 miles back out.

The gang--ready to hit the trail

I don't think we were even 1/4 mile into the hike when trouble struck...BEES. With all of us spread out along the trail, the first group of kids passed by a bees' nest without noticing, but their movement got the excitement brewing and the bees were ready for the next group of us to come along. Doug, Trevian, and I were all stung before we even knew what was going on. Before we'd hit the 1 mile mark, a second set of nests came along and the number of victims rose. One more spot along the 2-mile path was guarded by bees. We were glad to make it to the falls, but knew those bees would be waiting for our return trip.

We enjoyed a picnic by the falls and some great photo ops (potential Christmas card photos perhaps???). Of course, Terry explored a bit and finally decided to take the plunge into the swimming hole. He was the only one crazy enough to try it.
When it was time to head back, we formulated a game plan. This time we would outsmart the bees. Armed with a towel, Paul Heiner went first down the trail (note to self--smart plan to bring a bee expert along on the hike!) and snuck just past each nest. Then a group of us would run as fast as we could past the nest and Paul would fan the bees away from all of us. The rest of the group would wait for the excitement to die down, then we'd repeat the process. It must have just been bad bee season time because everyone we passed on the trail had also been stung. But the boys insisted they had no trouble with bees during the 50-miler earlier this summer.


By the time we made it back to the cars, we took a count. Breaking down the numbers:

Hikers: 13
Bee nests encountered: 3
Total group stings: 11
Doug: 4
Heather: 1
Terry: 0 (must've been the dip in the pool)
Zach: 2
Trevian: 3
Votes for returning to Kentucky Falls next Labor Day: 0

Don't get me wrong--it was a beautiful hike. But avoid the Labor Day bee season!