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| Shanty Hollow Lake, KY |
About 15 miles north of Bowling Green, KY is this great walking
trail at the south end of Shanty Hollow Lake. This trail takes you
through a deciduous forest with a variety of tree and wildflower
species, as well as mushrooms and many different kinds of song
birds and insects. The geology is typical of this karst area...
a cap of sandstone with limestone beneath. You'll see rocky bluffs,
with unusual honeycomb formations, and if you look closely, you'll
see some unique plants tucked away in the crevices. At the end of
the trail is a 150 ft waterfall, where you can take a break and enjoy
the landscape.
To the right of the parking lot is
the trailhead (photo below).
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| This is the beginning of the trail. If you're in the parking lot facing the lake, then the trailhead is to the right. |
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| With all the colorful leaves, on and off the trees, it feels like you're walking through an Impressionist's painting. |
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| Liverworts growing on the cliffs. |
All plants have vessels, xylem and phloem, (that transport water and minerals and organic molecules, such as glucose) except for mosses and liverworts. These tiny plants don't have vessels, so their nutrients must diffuse from one cell to another. Liverworts are flat and tiny and live near water, so that they can soak-up water/nutrients like a sponge.
Click here for information about liverworts.
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| Shanty Hollow Lake will be to your left as you're walking. You can see the side trail that takes you down to the lake. If you have plenty of time and energy, take this side trail down to the lake and explore the area, before you return to the main trail. |
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| Spotted this white bird, a Great Egret, fishing, successfully. |
Shanty Hollow Lake;
A great egret finds
A quiet spot.
A video of the egret.
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| On your right are large boulders on a hill leading to the top of the sandstone bluffs. |
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| Walking down toward the south end of the lake. |
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| Spotted this patch of green moss growing on one of the boulders. Remember, mosses and liverworts are plants that have no vessels, no flowers, no seeds...reproducing sexually, with sperm and eggs, and asexually, using spores. You can see spore cases at the top of the stalks, sticky upward. |
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| Get off the trail and walk up to the bluffs and explore. Growing on the rocks are small rock-ferns, called spleenworts. |
I heard a Golden Crowned Kinglet, here. They are only about
3 inches long and have a ringing call.
A soft ring
On a cold windy day;
A kinglet calls!
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| Noticed alot of these wildflowers. |
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| I think they're called Small-flowered Alumroot. |
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| Very neat tiny flowers! |
Alumroot;
Tiny white wildflowers
Beautify the cliff.
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| On top of the bluff, looking down toward the trail. |
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| I'd say I'm about 150 feet above the trail. |
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| I don't know how I saw this Inchworm. It is perfectly camouflaged, until it started moving! |
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| You can see the honeycomb pock marks in the cliff. |
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| I walked down this side trail to get back on the main trail. |
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| You will see evergreen plants, like this fern, all along the trail. |
I heard a White-breasted Nuthatch, here.
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| Photo taken from the Cornell site, below. Click here for Information and to hear the Nuthatch. |
Autumn woods;
A nuthatch scurries down
The tree trunk.
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| Mostly oaks, hickories, and maple trees. |
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| Looks like the leaves of Allegheny Spurge, with some Maidenhair Fern (top right). |
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| The trail goes up and down several times; just take yourtime and look/listen often. |
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| Beautiful landscape. |
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| Be sure to look down at the sides of the trail often...never know what you'll see. |
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| A very bright yellow mushroom spotted right off the trail. |
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| At this point you want to take the high road, to get to the waterfall. A different trail goes down toward the creek. |
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| Now, you're fairly high above the valley, walking along the base of the bluffs. There are lots of tiny ferns growing in the crevices of the boulders. |
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| Almost didn't see this beauty. |
Hidden life;
A white mushroom hides
Under the leaves.
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| Look at the bright green color of the moss growing on the boulders! This trail is filled with large, green, boulders!! |
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| This is Mountain Laurel. In May it will have some of the most unique flowers you'll ever see. I think they're beautiful! |
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| These are popular rock-climbing bluffs, I hear. |
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| These Yule Ferns are evergreen and can easily be seen in the winter when most of the plants have lost their leaves. This fern also goes by the name, Christmas Fern. |
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| Looking down into the valley and across to the bluffs on the other side. |
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| Noticed this very tiny fern, Mountain Spleenwort, growing in a crevice in the cliff. |
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| One of the rock shelters along the trail. |
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| You'll see patches of this beautiful moss (Polytrichum) all along the trail. |
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| A species of bushy moss, one of the largest kinds of moss. Looks like Stonecrop in the foreground. |
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| This looks like the male gametophytes of that moss species. Gametophytes produce the gametes, which are the sperm and the eggs. |
You can walk along the base of the bluffs the entire way to the
waterfall, or you can do what I like to do...turn left and go down
toward the mini-canyon, which also takes you to the falls.
But, you will have to jump over a section of the canyon
to get to the falls.
But, you will have to jump over a section of the canyon
to get to the falls.
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| This strange 30 ft long canyon leads to the waterfall, just ahead. It's about a 10 ft drop/fall into the canyon. |
It just amazes me how water can carve out a canyon like this,
with lots of time, of course.
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| This is a gorgeous image, to me! Very impressionistic! |
A colorful trail;
Large green boulders covered
With moss.
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| Along the canyon wall, growing with the moss, is a fern species called Walking Fern. Click here for Info |
Walking ferns belong to the genus Asplenium, which consists of those rock ferns, the rock spleenworts, live Mountain Spleenwort and Ebony Spleenwort. People used to think that these plants had an effect on our spleens. Wort is old English for plant...thus, spleenwort or plant that effects the spleen. This has not been proven, however!
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| Looking back at the canyon I just jumped over. It's only 2-3 feet across, but a little slippery. |
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| Some clubmosses (Lycopodium porophilum) in the foreground and background, to the left and center, and a species of Liverworts in the background, to the right. |
Unfortunately, these plants are called clubmosses; however, they are not true moss plants. Unlike mosses, these are vascular (have vessels), but, like mosses, they are seedless and do not make flowers.
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| This species of Liverworts is extremely tiny (compare it to the penny). |
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| Beyond the yellow leaves is the waterfall. |
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| It's a beautiful area, even though there's not much water falling, today. Click here to see the waterfall on a different day, with much more water! Take a break here and enjoy the landscape. Hopefully you brought a snack and water. |
From here you can walk back to the trailhead, or
just explore the area around the waterfall.
If you're near Bowling Green, take some time
to see this fantastic trail ! It's so beautiful at this
time of the year!!
Explore your surroundings!
Click here to see Shanty Hollow Lake in May
and here to see it in the Winter snow.
