Taylorsville Lake State Park: A Hiker's Lament

[GonzoJohn]

Taylorsville has a special place in my heart. My father was born and raised there, and a good part of my youth was spent traveling to Taylorsville on Saturdays or Sundays to visit any number of kinfolk in the area.

I watched my Grand-Pop fish on the Salt River long before they were even thinking about a dam for the lake. I learned to fish at my cousin's farm which now has the bypass running directly through what used to be their land. Even the ride to Taylorsville has some great memories, especially on the older sections of Taylorsville Rd. The trees used to grow so close together my sisters and I called it a “ride through the caves”.

Good times and treasured memories.

I've fished Taylorsville Lake and the tail waters many times, but I've never gone hiking in the State Park. When the cool weather hit this week, I figured I should change that.

When I hike a new park or any new trail for that matter, I like to check out the Internet to see if there is a trail map online. Barring an online map, I'll head to park welcome center or ranger station to pick up a map.

Taylorsville Lake State Park (TLSP) is part of the Kentucky State Parks system and as such, shares a few online tools for maps with the rest of the state. As of July 1st, I've yet to get these tools working properly with Firefox or Internet Explorer and I'm not sure it it's a bug with the browser, the Kentucky.gov servers or the browser plugin being utilized to deliver the maps.

So even BEFORE I left the house, I was a little frustrated. But without worry, I drove the 45 minutes or so to TLSP and went directly to the welcome center. Asking the one employee present if they had any trail maps available, I was given a photocopy of the park's trail map.

Bee Balm

Thinking all was fine, I went to the parking lot and sat in the car for a few minutes letting my eyes adjust to the light and the very tiny print on the photocopy page, deciding where I would start my day's adventures.

To my chagrin, all of the trails on the map were marked for use by hikers, bikers and horses with one exception, a short half mile wildlife viewing loop trail, which was marked as hikers only. The wildlife viewing loop sounded like a good warm up to start with, so off I went to the trailhead.

Upon arrival, I suited up, checked my gear, applied some deet for tick protection and headed out. It was partly cloudy, barely above 70 degrees and it looked like it was going to be a great day. It took about 30 yards along the trail before I started to change that opinion. After immediately ducking under several overhanging bushes, the trail split and there wasn't any direction anywhere for which way I was supposed to go. After a few minutes, I spotted a more worn area of the trail ahead and proceeded through about 10 yards of brush before continuing along the loop.

I'm not a novice hiker, nor would I call myself an expert. I've never spent weeks at a time humping it with a backpack and tent, but I'm a pretty seasoned day hiker. That being said, there are certain things on trails that I am always looking for that are a comfort.

Namely: trail markers.

Taylorsville Lake State Park has ZERO trail markers. They have trailhead markers and trail junction markers (some of which are confusing or worse, misnamed) but all along the trails, not a single triangle, square or any other polygon of any color is present. And it is a little disconcerting. Your best bet if you're lost in TLSP is to look for horse hoof prints to find the real trail. Several times during my hiking, I followed what looked like trail, but eventually disappeared into vegetation. I backtracked each time and followed the more beaten of two tracks to stay on trail.

There is no "Salt River" trail on the map

Trail but no markers

To complicate things, the names of trails on the map I was given didn't always match up to the trailhead markers or names posted to trees at junctions. I attempted the Lake Vista Trail according to the map, but the same trail was marked the Lake Loop, the Salt River Trail and no where along the trail was the name “Lake Vista” posted.

And what I thought was a loop trail, dead-ended at a picnic table and also at the end of an access road. There was no going forward, so I started back along the access road, which showed a trailhead for the “Lake Loop” trail, which does not exist on the map.

For a while, I felt like Moses in the Sinai and wasn't sure if I would have to retrace all my steps just to return to the parking lot.

Until these problems are addressed, I won't be heading back to Taylorsville Lake State Park to hike anytime soon, unless I suddenly develop a severe streak of masochism.

(Trail conditions aren't bad, but this is “horse friendly” park, so many trails are beaten up badly from horse traffic. Your best bet would be to pick one of several shorter trails, but I wouldn't recommend TLSP for hikers or bikers. TLSP is notorious for ticks, but in the approximately 4 miles I hiked, I picked ONE tick off of my socks.)

Deer are plentiful in the park

Praying Mantis

Check out the rest of the photos from my hike in Taylorsville Lake State Park.