Walls of Jericho TTA

Beautiful day for a hike, 55 degrees this morning starting from home. I drove to the Alabama state line thru lots of farmland going the scenic route. Through the Savage Gulf area, to Hwy 50, through Pelham, Decherd, Winchester. Nice drive. Met up with the folks from Murfreesboro at the trailhead. Roy was our hike leader. We shuttled cars to the AL trailhead then started at the TN trailhead. I asked right away who was the scout for snakes. Someone said the one in the lead. I was the 5th in line and found the snake. Black snake, looked comfortable sleeping. We let him sleep. The trail was a little overgrown in some areas. We did find a few ripe huckleberries...yummmm. We also spotted some wildflowers blooming; Pipsissewa, daisies, Spiderwort, Indian Paintbrush, Ashy Hydrangea. 

All the creeks were dry today so we didn't go to the blowhole. We met Marietta coming up from the walls, she had been planing to meet us and hike out, but she had already spent some time at the walls and was ready to hike out. It was warming up. When we arrived at the walls, there was one hole of water you could swim in, but just a little bit trickling down from the walls. There were plenty of tadpoles in the little pools of water. We found a shady spot and ate lunch. We had to climb on up to inspect the big hole and to see if there was any water coming over the waterfall. There wasn't and the hole was dry too. There was a vine with some blooms on it that were very interesting. I thought it might be Vasevine, not sure. Since I forgot my camera.......

The hike out seemed mostly uphill...hmmm what's up with that. We saw some cool looking centipedes and millipedes on the trail. I knew it was getting close to suppertime and mentioned that to Nabil, who said that we should go for ice cream when we got off the trail. Our hike leader had a cooler filled with ice cold water waiting for us in the parking lot. 

It was a good day of hiking and enjoyed being with Sara, Nabil, Jamie, Wayne, Jan, and Roy.

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