River To River Trail- Failed Thru Hike -The Good, Bad and Ugly.- Day 2

The temperature didn't fall much overnight. My quick dry sun hoody was still soaking wet this morning. On a positive note I did sleep almost 12 hours.... After I ate last night I laid down around 6 pm and I don't remember much till about 5:30 am this morning!

Today I will be going to Garden Of The Gods, a popular park with some great rock formations. I have visited this park before and spent a couple of nights hanging in the hammock around the park on various trips. It is just a bit more mileage today than yesterday, around 11.5 miles, I changed a few settings on my Garmin watch so we will see what it says for today. 

The temperatures and humidity for today is suppose to be a bit higher.

The trail meanders between Bassett Rd and Cadiz Rd through the Big Creek hollows

The morning light was particularly good through this section with the trees and wild flowers 

The trail weaves in and out of forest service, logging roads and just some single track that is a bit overgrown, but again not bad for the short sections you are on them. 

You cross the Big Creek a few times and then you have a short road walk on Cadiz Rd. 

Afterward, you start to head up hill toward High Knob and the High Knob horse camp area. 

You reach the intersection with the old Battery Rock starting section

You enter into an area used (maybe owned) by the High Knob Horse camp, it has many horse trails that meet with and crisscross the R2R trail, but it is not hard to stay on the R2R trail and there are a decent amount of trail markers when needed to keep you on track. This section has been extensively repaired (R2R trail crews or Horse camp?) but the deep ruts that you can tell were there have been covered in with rock, dirt and gravel... Thank you)  

 

This old cabin marks the spot on my map for a side trip and a site to see, It might be a pictograph, but that is somewhat in dispute. The first photo below if from the R2R trail guide in 2024. I am not sure when the their actual photo was taken 

This is my photo taken Sept 2025, and if it was an example of Native art it has now faded into obscurity. 

This particular area is a nexus for many horse trails coming together and several old cabins 

Down the trail a bit is the entrance to High Knob proper. It is just a short walk up the hill. 

There is a lovely view and a few picnic tables. You should never pass up a bench or picnic table without a sit down! 

After a brief rest, a short distance away, is the High Knob Horse camp. This is a community of permanent houses and trailers where "Horse people" have "vacation" typed homes to come and ride their stock. (well that is what it looks like to me, some may live here full time.)

The real benefit for me was the Campground Store. There was never anyone in the store while I was there but they had a cooler of water and Gatorade (no ice cream though 😢)

I waited a few minutes and looked around for anyone, but no one ever showed up. I got a couple of waters and Gatorades and left money on the desk with a note and sat outside on their porch for 30 minutes and had my lunch. Those drinks went down much better than my filtered creek water! 

Taking advantage of the camp store's porch swing and shade. 

After lunch it was on toward Garden Of The Gods. The trail after the camp store climbs up high on a ridge for a while and the scenery and the trail are very nice. I did see a couple groups of horse riders

As you get into the Wilderness area of Garden Of The Gods you start to see some of the really nice rock formations that makes the area such an attraction. 

Below is Buzzard Point ( a well known feature) and the location for one of the R2R donated picnic benches. Time for a break of course 

There is a fair bit of up and down when you leave the horse trails and enter into the Garden of Gods Wilderness area. Not long but probably the most strenuous of the day. 

Garden Of The Gods hiker parking lot has an R2R sign with mileage posted. My destination was up the road to the actual campground for the night. 

Got to the campsites fairly early (4 pm-ish)- about half the sites were taken but no problem getting one. It seems a huge waste to have a backpacker take up a campsite. Not to mention a pain because at least three cars tried to pull in a take my site, after dark, not seeing a car parked they assumed it was unoccupied as they didn't see my tent.  There is a lovely grassy area just across from the fee kiosk that would be perfect for backpackers and it actually has nice grass under many trees, unlike the complete rocky concrete ground of the campsites. 

My spot did have a nice evening view 

My campsite neighbor (Al and his dog Milly) brought over several apples for me. What a treat and all of the campers that I engaged with were all very nice people. 

Well today was actually warmer than yesterday, without a breath of wind. I actually laid out on top of the picnic table, cowboy camp style, for awhile, until the bugs found me... 😬

Nice view looking up 

Garmin update.

Garmin showed 19 miles walked today, when there was only 11.5. I have not had this much inaccuracy for a long time, It happened to me once on a day hike around Peck's Ranch with the OTSHAB group. It did not record a track again today. This usually means it is not getting a lock on the satellites when it first starts. I am really not sure what more I can do to get a more accurate calculation.