Thanksgiving 2018

Marjorie and Niles joined us for Thanksgiving this year. We took them for a hike on the Rock Creek segment of the Cumberland trail on Friday. We did the family dinner at Lora's Dad and Mom's house and were joined by her sister and Paul. It was a wonderful time of eating and socializing.

Saturday we headed over to Fall Creek Falls. We hiked from the nature center over to Fall Creek Falls. We were going to the bottom, but the park had other plans as they were working on the lower trail. From there we drove over to Piney Creek Falls and did the scenic drive as well. Then we drove over to the Medley Farm and checked out Medley Arch and the falls next to it. There were a few heated games of Sequence played as well.

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Sheltowee, Honey Creek, Gentlemen's Swimming Hole

Sheltowee 8.1
Honey Creek 3.4
Gentlemen's Swimming Hole 2.1

Heading out for an overnighter, we headed to the Big South Fork. We had not hiked the newest section of the Sheltowee trail which runs from Honey Creek to the O&W bridge. So we did! 5.2 miles.

The Sheltowee follows the West side of the Honey Creek Loop which is the easiest side with only one time that you have to crawl through the rocks. From there you go over the ridge and back down into the river valley. You get to see numerous rock houses and water falls. The horses, which I know that it is the ignorant riders that can't read the signs, have torn up the trail. Especially going down to the O&W bridge. The bridge has been improved since the last time we saw it.

From the bridge we headed back and set up camp on the ridge where the spring begins just before the Honey Creek Loop. We got to listen to the coyotes and owls for the night.

The next morning we did the other half of the 5.7 mile Honey Creek loop which is a challenge with a backpack. You have to climb, crawl, skirt, find, rock hop and go through on this section. It's all beautiful!

We drove up to the overlook after finishing the trail and ate lunch. With more time left in the day, we headed over to historic Rugby and hiked the 2.1 mile Gentlemen's Swimming Hole loop. This trail goes down to the Clear Fork where they have picnics and swimming. Then it goes along the river down to White Oak Creek where the creek and river meet. Then you climb back up the gorge and hike an old roadbed back to the trailhead. We did a little exploring on the roadbed. We found flagging in the woods that we thought would lead to an overlook. Stopped looking when the trail started dropping toward the creek.

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Little River Trail

Ladies weekend in the Smokies. Jean, Sara and I met up in Crossville at our standard meeting place: Cracker Barrel. Went thru Townsend to get lunch and then to Elkmont to get to our trailhead. The Little River trail is a road bed that has nice bridges until Little River spreads out into channels and we started rock hopping. It becomes trail now instead of road, which we like better. We passed campsite #24 which is huge and then started some tricky creek crossings. Reading the trail descriptions and counting the creek crossings, when we got to a really hard crossing, I thought we needed to cross this one and one more, so we decided to scout up the smaller creek bed to see if the campsite was on this side of the creek. We ducked under trees and climbed over trees and rock hopped and then I climbed thru some rhododendron and still didn't find camp. We backtracked and decided we would go back to campsite #24. I said "Lord if campsite 30 is right here at this hard creek crossing, please show me the bear hangers" The sun glinted off the cables so we cheered ? and  chose to try the logs to cross over. Inching our feet across the lowest log and bending over holding onto the higher one, then stepping onto the rock the logs were balanced on, then whew! We made it! Set up camp, collected firewood.
We all had the same fire starter. Marco had given Craig a little block of fire starter to try, and Jean had used it before and really liked it. It burns for 5-7 minutes giving you time to let your little wood catch fire. The guys that camped close to us had a small fire going trying to dry their boots and socks from slipping off the logs in the creek crossing. They had tried to balance walking across without holding on. After Sara explained to them that we used our water shoes, they decided we were smarter than them, since that was the grown up thing to do. We had a great night around the fire.
6.2 miles

Morning time with an extra hour from the time change. We were up at daybreak, with Jean getting a fire started. We got back across the creek without a problem and backtracked to campsite 24, hung our packs and started up Rough Creek Trail. We met 2 guys that had hiked down Sugarland Mountain and Rough Creek, giving us warnings about overgrown trail with trees down. We ain't scared! Up we go, crossing the creek a couple of times and climbing. We did have to climb thru and over trees. Picked up lots of limbs trying to clear the path, then the upper part got worse. From the fire two years ago this upper ridge had burned and lots of trees died and fell. Weeds and briars are overtaking the trail because lots of sunshine and no canopy. We got a little scratched up but didn't give up. We made it to the top and saw the beautiful view of Chimney Tops and Mount LeConte.
We rested for a few, then backtracked to Little River Trail and our packs so we could eat lunch. On the way we encountered a snake, Sara yelled, I screamed and Jean screamed, and the snake got the heck out of there. And no, I don't feel bad for the snake's ears....

We hiked out on Cucumber Gap Trail giving Jean another new trail to mark off. As we walked out the Jakes Creek trail to the parking lot we got to see the improvements to the houses the Park has made. They are only preserving some of the houses. The others are torn down but the chimneys remain.
12.7 miles by the Brown Book. 12.5 by the map?

We stopped for supper in Maryville, then parted ways until the next time. Thanks ladies for a great weekend!

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