I’ve been hiking what AllTrails calls the Monroe Trail for more than three decades but have never followed it to the lake of the same name.
I’ve always taken a side path to the now-history Waldrip Cabin when the old road-turned-trail heads 230 feet downhill nine-tenths of a mile to the shoreline. But since that trail is rapidly growing over and littered with storm damage, and it had been eight years since I photographed Lake Monroe, this time I veered right.
Indiana’s largest lake was high, quiet, and on the move with the wind under a picturesque blue sky filled with billowing cumulus clouds. The trail was mid-spring lush.
