Big South Fork Camping/Hiking TTA

Joan and Tony set up a camping/hiking weekend at BSF, Bandy Creek Campground. 9 hikers/campers in 4 campsites. I got there late and the others were on a hike. I set up in the woods behind one of the campsites. It was the most level and had the right spaced trees. The first hiker back walked into the campsite I was setting up my hammock at, I didn't recognize him and asked if he was with TTA, he is, hi Jeff, I'm Lora, I thought this was Marietta's campsite. Oops.

Everyone had been at the Sunset Overlook Trail. They were ready for supper. The wind was blowing, not good for a campfire so the lucy light gave us a bright glow to sit around. Marietta had brought her own birthday cake, chocolate on chocolate from Julia's Bakery in the Boro. Yumm and Happy Birthday to Marietta! John got there just as we were getting ready to call it a night. So we stayed up later. After getting in my hammock I heard a whippowill and two owls.

Saturday morning Tony arrived, John cooked eggs and fried potatoes. We headed out to the Grand Gap Loop. It was cool to see the overlook where Craig and I said "I DO". Lots of memories on this trail. We admired the beauty of the overlooks and hiked on. My stomach was saying lunch was way overdue, but Joan wanted to eat at the next overlook. I told her there was no more overlooks, but we pressed on and came back to our exit sign where we sat down for lunch. We could have eaten in the cars that were parked 1/10th of a mile from this spot. When we got back to camp, we cleaned up a little and headed to the Visitor's Center. The Spring Planting Festival was winding down. We missed the mules plowing, and the garden planting. But we caught some of the music. John and Jeff found the food vendors. Swamp cabbage??? The rest of us found a shuttle to Lora Blevins home-site where we talked to the folks that planted the garden and gave talks on making moonshine. Lora was a man, a Baptist minister. The gardener gave us some left over tomato plants and marigolds. We walked around at the cemetery and then caught the shuttle back, going by the Oscar Blevins home-site that had some farm animals still there. The shuttle driver was nice enough to take us all the way to camp. Lazy hikers.....

Joan had made chili for our group dinner, everyone else had sides to go along with. Joe worked some magic with a dutch oven and a chimney with charcoal. Peach cobbler and it was yummy. No wind tonight, the ladies gathered firewood and I got the fire started, Joe kept it burning.  We gathered around, good conversation, jokes from John, good and bad......Beautiful sunset, peaceful night. One hiker departed in the night.

Sunday morning was warm and pretty. John baked cinnamon rolls for breakfast, he packed up and headed for the Cornbread festival. Marietta headed for home. The rest of us headed to Pogue Creek Canyon. We were searching for the elusive exit on the gravel road just past the parking lot. We drove and drove and stirred up dust. We stopped a few times asking the dune buggy riders if they knew where it was, turned on some rough road that they play on and finally gave up the road became impassible. Headed back to where we saw a sign coming from Pickett's trails. Sara called the Park office and that was where our exit road was. It had a cable across the road and no signs for Pogue, no kiosk, no trail markings. We left cars here, Sara shuttled us to the kiosk, we looked at the map on the kiosk that only shows the loop and the spur to the overlook. We hiked the right side of the loop to the overlook, saw the Upper Canyon Trail sign just before the overlook. That took us down into the canyon. This is a beautiful/rugged/awe inspiring trail. One spur led to an arch. We saw a new segment being built that was flagged and roped off. On the way out of the canyon we found another spur trail to an arch and mesa. No indication of mileage to the arch so we looked around a little and decided not today. This requires some research. We had to climb a steep roadbed to exit the area. Wondering if the State is making a new exit with some switchbacks (I hope). More research to do.

Thanks to all for a great weekend. Joan, Tony, Sara, Jennifer, Marietta, John, Joe, Jeff.

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Laurel Falls

An after work hike with Crystal, her first time to the bottom of Laurel Falls. We really enjoyed the wildflowers and the pretty Richland Creek. We met two hikers that didn't take enough water, but we didn't have any to spare. They were close to the parking lot and we were just getting started. We had a snack at the Falls, Crystal had made cornbread, and it was good. The view was perfect. She shared memories of her brother and her coming to the top of the Falls in the winter time.

We made it out in plenty of time to not get locked in. Gate closes at 7.

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Fooshee Pass Campground

After hiking a couple of days in the rain in the Smoky's, we decided to spend four days at Fooshee Pass Campground on Watt's Bar lake. The weather was great the whole time. We did some hiking, fishing, canoeing, and just plain relaxing. Life is Good!

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Ladies Spring Backpack 2019

Diane planned a week long trip to the Great Smoky Mountains, once again gathering the ladies and planning trails to mark off maps. I was planning to finish my last two trails so I can get that elusive 900 Miler sticker to put on my car. Since this was to be a celebration, Craig was allowed to attend our Ladies Easter Smokies get-together, privileged, honorary guest.

Judy met us at Cades Cove, but didn't want to hike Wet Bottoms with us, can't imagine why, it had only rained a little :) So we left one car on the road where we would exit and took the other car to the trailhead by Abrams Falls trail. Wet Bottoms earned its name, it looked like a stream. This trail is only 1 mile long, but when we ran out of trail at the creek, there was a path leading to the road. Since the creek was about 3 to 4 feet deep, no one wanted to cross so we hiked out to the road and walked to the Oliver place and went back on the trail. Hiked to the creek, turned around and hiked back to the exit. Turned a one miler into a two-three miler. Wasn't interested in swimming today.

We drove to Elkmont to camp only to find barriers at the entrance. Elmont was flooded and had been evacuated. The folks in charge told us to go to Sugarlands and wait, or go to Cades Cove to camp. We drove to a pull off where we could see the barrier, Gloria Dale pulled in. She had been at Elkmont earlier and tried to catch us before we left Cades Cove. She got there in time to see us go by, and tried to catch us before we got too far to no avail, even with flashing her lights at Nancy all the way to Elkmont. Diane chased down Judi at Sugarlands and we went back up that curvy little road thru the bear jam, again. Two campsites next to each other, 8 cars. We took over the pavilion for our fiesta fajita dinner with margaritas. Back to camp for a wonderful campfire.

Saturday, the big day for my last trail! Only the mountains conspired against that idea, SNOW on the mountain tops closed 441 and Clingmans Dome Road. So we hiked one of  Linda's trails for her map. (thru the bear jam.)  Chestnut Top Trail with lovely wildflowers. We hiked into White Oak Sink to view the gorgeous yellow lady slippers, thanks to dedicated searching. Then out on Schoolhouse Gap Trail. And back thru the bear jam. We got a fire going, and set up for dinner believing the rain to be finished. Jim, Carol and Lynelle came to join us and Carol was carrying a cake! She had it made for my celebration, cake was decorated with mountains, stream and wildflowers. We lifted glasses in celebration anyway because we had cake, champagne and Prosecco, wine and beer. And gifts from my sweet friends. And then the umbrellas popped open. What a rainbow of colors.

Sunday morning dawned bright and clear. 441 would probably open later today, maybe, not Clingmans Dome. So let's go to Deep Creek. Craig, Gloria Dale, and Linda headed home. The caravan headed to NC along the Foothills Parkway and the Dragons Tail. Merciful heavens.
We arrived at Deep Creek Campground, tents popped up. Garnett went toward trails she needed there, Diane, Amy, Nancy and I headed to Cooper Creek and the trout farm. Only the trout farm says no you can't park here. You can drive down this other road and find parking area to get you to Deeplow Gap. Only we searched and searched and the only parking we found was Thomas Divide trail, too far from Deeplow to hike today.

We found a sign for Hemlock Inn, and found a beautiful place (I just needed a place to pee). Somewhere we might like to stay sometime. Gorgeous mountain views from the porch and dining room. The proprietor answered the door and showed us around. Cool place.
 
Back to the campground we went. The other ladies took off to hike, I took off for more driving. Headed to Watts Bar Lake, Fooshee Pass Campground to meet Craig. He had set up our camper there for the next three nights. I had a beautiful drive, longer thanks to the GPS which led me Southwest, not NW. Over another curvy mountain road with beautiful views of mountains. The other ladies have many trails to cover the next few days, Happy Trails!

Thanks my friends! Diane, Nancy, Gloria Dale, Garnet, Linda, Amy, Judi. Y'all are the bestest!
Thanks to my sweet husband, Jim, Carol, and Lynelle, for coming to celebrate.

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2019 Townsend Eggscursion

After having our fiberglass trailer for over a year, we finally got to make an egg rally. We headed off to the Townsend Eggscursion. As soon as we pulled in we saw eggs (fiberglass trailers). The Eggscursion was being held at the KOA. A really nice campground with lots of extras. They had a guy show us to our campsite and even backed us in. I came into the camper and Lora said that we had a water leak. It was a brown water leak which putting two and two together I came up with Sweet Tea. Our pitcher had fell over in the refrigerator and leaked out through the lower cabinet and across the floor. We spent the first part of our day cleaning floors.

Dad and Mom showed up and we started our walk around the campground.  Talk about friendly people. We visited and everyone showed off their egg. Lots of stories to tell and what they liked and didn't like about their trailer.  With just one short break we pretty much spent the day doing the walk.

At six o'clock we headed to the pavilion next to our trailer for the pot luck dinner. What a spread they put out. Thirty two in all. As I was eating, I looked over at our trailer and there was brown streaks running down the side from the refrigerator panel. So after dinner, I was back to cleaning as Lora did a second cleaning of the floor.

We got a campfire going and invited the neighbors over.  They were worried about rain coming in tonight so they started packing up after dinner.  They had a 13' Scamp. They loaded their car and loaded their car all evening long. They were still loading as we went to bed. Where did they keep all that stuff and how much does one need to camp?

Sunday morning we hooked up the camper, said goodbye to the other egg people and drove to the trailhead for Schoolhouse Gap. They made the parking spaces long enough to park a rig here.

It was  a little rainy but that didn't stop us from going to the sinks to see the wildflower show. We saw a young photographer that was so engrossed in getting a trillium to smile for him, he didn't even see us till we spoke to him. It's cool to see young people so excited about the wildflowers.

Little Brown Jugs, Toothwort, Golden Alexander, Anemone, Dwarf Ginseng, Foam flower, abundant on the first part of the trail. In the sinks we found Pennyroyal, one Showy Orchis, Columbine was blooming on the rock wall, Shooting Stars and signs on the trail side telling us to STAY ON THE TRAIL, ZOOM IN. The areas close to the cave and water fall are fenced off, a lot more so than the last time we were here.

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Cummings Falls Wildflowers

I met Karla in Sparta to ride with her to Cummings Falls State Park. It was a pretty meandering ride thru the countryside to get to the park. There is a campground across the road from the entrance to the Park, with a general store.
We pulled into the parking lot and Karla decided to move as close to the edge of the gravel lot as she could. When she backed up and then pulled forward we heard a scraping noise. I got out to see what we might have trapped under her CRV and saw an orange cone wedged between the front wheel and the side fender. And it was wedged tight! I pulled and pulled and then had her back up to smush it under the tire. Then it wedged between the tire and front fender. She pulled forward again and it wedged under the car. We were entertaining some guys that were standing in the parking lot watching us, they felt sorry for us and came over and pulled the cone out. Only it was 3 cones stacked together.
Phew!

We were early for Anthony's Photography/Wildflower excursion so we hiked toward the Cummings Falls overlook. We got distracted by the wildflowers and turned back before we got to the overlook.
Found Anthony at the trailhead, along with some other ladies ready to see the wildflowers. After some pointers from Anthony for taking better pictures, we started out on the Downstream trail stopping to take pics of everything blooming. One girl was a botany student seeking the scientific names for the flowers, I offered her my book, Anthony gave her the scientific word he knows: SCIENCE, that's very scientific. No Latin needed. We were going to the secret waterfall to see the abundance of blooms in that area. It's beautiful here with high rock walls, two waterfalls, the river side, and wildflowers everywhere. The Botany student found a newt, a salamander, I found the remains of a frog....  Karla practiced with Anthony's bag of tricks. It was thundering and then it started to sprinkle. Karla and I started back and walked down the riverside trying to find the trail we came in on. We discovered some bluebells, and prairie trilliums by going the wrong way. We found the trail and on the way up it started raining, but I was prepared with my rain jacket and hat, but it was humid and too warm and we thought it would stop.  We pressed on, going to see the big waterfall at the overlook trail, rain came down harder so we put on the rain gear. By the time we got back to the parking lot we looked like drowned rats, and then the sun came out.

Lunch was at a great Mexican place in Cookeville. Hungry hikers. Then a little retail therapy for us girls.
It was a beautiful day to spend with my friend Karla, and with Anthony who got me started searching for wildflowers years ago.
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Fall Creek Falls Prater Homestead

Fall Creek Falls SP Seasonal Ranger Derek led 7 hikers and one 4 legged hiker on the Prater Homestead trail to Hemlock Falls. It's 2.7 miles to the waterfall. We found a LOT of wildflowers today, along with salamander eggs and frog egg jelly clusters. The temperature got warm today. After we finished the hike, I went to the Crusher Hole to see if the Columbine was blooming. I didn't see any, but there were lots of wild ginger, violets, and a Celandine Poppy. From the rain we had recently, Cane Creek flooded the Crusher Hole area and filled the area with sand. Not sure the wildflowers like the sandy soil.

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