Adventures

Hiking at Petit Jean

By Trey ⋅ February 10, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅ Post a comment

The weather has warmed up a bit here – in the 50s and 60s lately. We wanted to get out of the house and get some fresh air so we decided to go to Petit Jean State Park for hiking and some lunch. Jackie’s mom also wanted to go so we all piled into the car and headed out. I had never been to Petit Jean though I knew a lot about it from friends and family. Everyone talks about the hiking trails that lead you to a huge waterfall where you can stop and have lunch and enjoy the view. Petit Jean also has their famous overlook and grave site where you can not only see where Petit Jean herself was supposedly buried but also a spectacular view of the River Valley below. It’s interesting to read all the markers concerning the history of the mountain as well.

The trail we took wasn’t too busy, and we our time for the most part so we could just enjoy being outdoors and in the sunshine. I didn’t realize how tall Petit Jean is until we started descending back and forth down the trail in order to get down to the bottom of the valley. All of us kept thinking about the fact that we were going to have to hike back up eventually, and that was going to be a bit tough.

We made it to the waterfall and had lunch and just sat and talked for a while. There’s a huge pool of water at the bottom of the waterfall and a stream leading from it that runs through the valley. There were more people at this point, but it still wasn’t crowded.

After the waterfall we headed up back up the trail and put our game faces on. It actually wasn’t too bad for 3 people who aren’t really used to any strenuous hiking. We stopped a couple of times to rest along the way, but so did everyone else we saw. It felt good to get outside and do something physical after being couped up in the cold for so long.

You can see our home video of the waterfall and all the photos we took below.

 

Tags: camping·hiking·petit jean