Anna Ruby Falls

On our way out of Helen, Georgia we saw a sign for Anna Ruby Falls and well we were here. 153 foot and a 50 foot water falls. $3 per person to get into this area. GA park pass not valid here.

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Helen, Georgia

After our hike we were only an hour away from Helen, Georgia that Lora had heard about so we stopped by for a visit. It is a beautiful city/tourist trap with a wonderful history.

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Fires Creek-Nantahala National Forest

We drove down to Georgia and just North of Hayesville in the Nantahala National Forest. Our plan was to hike the 30 mile Fires Creek Rim trail. After doing some studying on the trail it was between 23.4 and 26 miles depending on the source. USDA Forest Service page has a layout and description. It is trail number 72. I got the following from Richard:

There are at least 6 spots along the rim where water sources are near 
the rim trail, and all are marked with a wood "W" painted blue,  they 
are near Shortoff Knob, a short walk down Rockhouse, Shinbone, Far Bald 
trails, near where Chunky Gal hits the rim trail, at Bald Springs trail, 
and Cold springs gap.
There is also supposed to  be a plane wreck on Johnson Bald.

We were going to hike the trail clockwise. We started out at the picnic area where the trail circles above the Fires Creek water fall. That is where we had our first water crossing. It is a steady climb up to Shortoff Knob. There is a campsite and creek just before you get there. The rest of the trail is straight up or down because you are on a ridge and there are no switch backs. The views are wonderful this time of year with no leaves on the trees.

We saw a spring on the back side of Shortoff knob down from the trail. I had read that there was water at Will King Gap, but there is not. We ended up hiking to Big Stamp for the night which by the description is 7.6 miles. We came in using headlamps, but we started late after driving from Middle Tennessee. We had a campfire and the water was a few hundred feet down the Rockhouse Creek trail.

The next morning we hiked to just before Whiteoak Knob where we found our first "W" sign which was laying on the ground. I don't know if there was water in that area because all the trails were marked with blue and I did not see any markers at all to lead you in the right direction,

From Whiteoak Knob until Chunky Gal or Tusquitee Bald was covered completely with blow downs from either a straight line wind or tornado in that area. Trees pushed rhododendron  down over the trail as well. This part of the trail needs to be closed until they can clear it. It is not safe to hike! We snaked our way through, over, under, and around to get through for at least 3 hours. We thought about going down at Sassafras creek trail, but the damage was so great in that area, I wasn't sure which was the closer out. We continued our adventure until we got to Tusquitee Bald and quit. We had 7.3 miles in at that point and were exhausted.

We decided to go down on the 1.9 mile Far Bald Springs trail which was clear. We walked down to FSR 340 and hiked it until dark and made camp. About 11.8 miles in for the day.

The next morning we hiked out about 4 miles. It was a beautiful walk along the Fires Creek without seeing anyone until we got about a mile from our car. We did post a warning on the sign when we left and I have sent emails to everyone I could about the damage.

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Soak Creek

Finally a Saturday without rain! Eleven hikers gathered at the Piney River on Shut In Gap Road. It felt like old home week when I saw Don and Carol and TC and Judy in the parking lot. They also had another hiking friend with them, Lonnie. When Marietta, Cheryl, Sara, Jan and Nancy got there we were ready to go. We drove to the parking area for Stinging Fork SNA and got started, 33 degrees and sunny. There was a lot of water in the creek so the falls were flowing nicely. Water was flowing down the ridges all over the place. The new segment of trail goes from the Falls to Soak Creek then to the confluence with Piney River and out to the road close to the bridge across Piney River. The CTC Facebook page said 7.5 miles of trail. Don's calculations was 6.3 or so. He is planning to wheel the trail and GPS it soon. There will be trail descriptions added to the CTC website soon. The rock work on this trail is awesome, probably 1000 rock steps in here. Shawna's trail crew rocks!

As we crossed the bridge we saw 3 kayakers in the river working on their whitewater technique. That water is cold on this second day of winter, but they seemed excited to have some whitewater to play in.

We said goodbye to the CT vols, then headed back to Stinging Fork. We hiked back to the trail junction and out to the overlook, which we had skipped on the way in. Lots of moss and a few views of the creek, you can hear it better than you can see it from here.

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