Nebraska National Forest: Soldier Creek Wilderness

Having exhausted a bit of energy in completing the Jewel Cave caving tour last night, Noelle and I just weren’t in the mood for a long road trip. Instead of heading over to the Cave Hills like we had originally planned, we instead opted to stay a little closer to home and head down to Nebraska and the Soldier Creek Wilderness. The drive down was uneventful and to be honest, a little bit boring. We made it into Crawford by a little after 11. We walked around town before settling on the Frontier Restaurant (and bar) for lunch. After a delicious lunch we drove through Fort Robinson State Park through a surprisingly deep creek, and into Nebraska National Forest where we found the trailhead for the Trooper Trail and Soldier Creek Wilderness.

The hiking was pleasant. In the beginning we crossed Soldier Creek several times,

and then headed up into higher ground where the views were great.

Fortunately, the weather was cool. There’s not a whole lot of shade in the wilderness due to a major fire in 1989.

We could imagine it gets rather hot on a really warm day. We followed the Trooper Trail to its junction with the Boots and Saddle Trail, then descended to Middle Fork of Soldier Creek where we found a decent spot next to the creek to camp for the night.

After filtering some water from the least muddy section of creek and making dinner, we retired for an early night of sleep.