Old Man's Cave/Ash Cave/Cedar Falls Hike

Corvair making a point to The Donald and Mark Hemming just before we shoved off on a 10 mile, rolling hike from Old Man's Cave over to Ash Cave and then on to Cedar Falls prior to returning.  The temperature was around 30 and sunny.

We decided, with likely icy conditions on the gorge trail, to leave it for later and take the rim trail.  We paused at the damn overlooking the lake to make sure Jenn, Corvair and Frans knew where to turn and then Steve O, Mark, The Donald, Flyin Tuna and me continued on to......

.....Ash Cave and that neat water fall, which was running rather strongly due to recent rains.  Mark H is an interesting guy and it turns out he was in Phoenix, hiking some of the same trails I hiked while I was out there.  I think we'll meet up next fall and I can introduce him to some spots he has not visited.  We climbed out of the gorge and hiked on to Cedar Falls, stopping at the....

....fire tower where Donald, Jenn and Corvair climbed to the top.  Just when Mark reached the top, we took off.  Ha, ha.  After reaching Cedar Falls, I left the group to run back and upon reaching Ash Cave, I took the......

....gorge trail to Old Man's Cave.  The trail received plenty of use and has eroded in places.  Some trail work is needed and I wondered if anyone has taken a tumble into the river in some spots.

Several places the water cascades off the rim. 

Eventually I reached the water fall at OMC and then headed up and out to the parking lot.  Looks like we'll be doing the Wildcat Hollow, 15 mile hike next weekend or maybe the Zaleski 12 mile northern route.  I'll post something on that soon.  Well, back to splitting wood.  I sold two cords last week, woohoo!  I do it for the exercise (the splitting not the selling) and since I have way more than I can burn, I charge a very reasonable amount and provide way more than a cord.