Walls of Jericho

Today Daniel and I headed up the the Skyline Wildlife Management Area to visit The Walls of Jericho. We had heard that it was a pretty sweet hike and since the weather was nice we thought we would give it a try.

The Alabama State Park website calls it the "Grand Canyon on the South." I have heard this slogan applied to several gorges in the southeast so I don't buy into the hype. It is a pretty canyon, but definitely not a "grand canyon." If you are purely looking for views, I would suggest you hit up Cloudland Canyon on Lookout Mountain {Georgia}.

Anyways, The Walls of Jericho is a pretty hike down into a gorge. At the end of the canyon you find a series of waterfalls and pools that you can wade in. There is also an entrance to a cave that you can access here. We were short on time and weren't equipped for spelunking so we just enjoyed the scenery.

My personal lesson from the day: Wear proper shoes and don't be stubborn.

Since it was a warm day, Daniel and I both decided to wear our Chaco sandals for hiking. Normally this would be fine. However, this is one of our first hikes of the year and it has just gotten warm enough for daily sandal wear. This means that the soles of my feet are not toughened yet. This also means that about 1.5 miles into the hike I noticed that I was starting to get hot spots. Daniel didn't have this same problem.

Not to be deterred from making it to the bottom, I pushed on. Daniel repeatedly told me that I would regret this decision on the climb out. I ignored his warning and we kept going. 

As we neared the bottom the pain was getting pretty bad, but I sucked it up and we made it into the gorge. I relished soaking my bare feet in the cold water, but having to turn around and hike out was almost unbearable.

I hiked out VERY SLOWLY. The hike itself was not bad, but every step felt like I was stepping on glass. I tried walking on different parts of my feet: my toes {which made my calves hurt}; the outsides of my feet {which messed with my hips}; the balls of my feet. None were good options. 

We finally made it out of the canyon. Normally I wouldn't rate this as a particularly hard hike {if you are used to hiking} but walking with blisters made the entire day brutal.