Collin's Gulf

Today's hike was Collin's Gulf. We had gotten a little snow overnight. Great day to be out with just a few other hikers.

 Pictures:

Collin's Gulf trail

Lora and I went to the Savage Gulf and hiked the Collin's Gulf trail. It was covered in wildflowers and we enjoyed the water falls too. We hiked past Horsepound falls and down to the creek crossing. We met the TTA Scenic City chapter on the trail.

Pictures:

Collins Gulf Falls

 

Saturday after Thanksgiving was a good day to go look at waterfalls. We drove out to Collins Gulf and hiked to Suter Falls and Horsepound Falls.

Pictures:

Collins Gulf

Today we went for a day hike along Collins Gulf. It was 43 degrees with a misty air for our hike. The wildflowers were beautiful as well as the water falls. Saw lots of Wild Ginger, some purple Phacelia, Larkspur, Dolls Eyes, Cohosh, Wild Geranium, a few trilliums, one strange one that I think is Prairie trillium but has 4 leaves. A few Chickweed, Wood violet and Birdfoot violet, and was searching for Jack in the Pulpit. Finally found one, stopped looking for it after that one. Then saw 2 more, and on the way out at Suter Falls we found two purple striped ones, that we passed by on our way in and didn't see?

Pictures:

Collins Gulf - TN Meetup Hikers

Black Friday is the perfect day to go hiking. Car had gas, didn't even have to shop for that.

Met one hiker at the proposed trailhead. The gate across the road that had a private property sign on it had us turning back. We met the other hikers at the road, studied the map, and drove to the Collins Gulf trailhead in Gruetli Laager. 7 hikers ready for an adventure. Jeff was our fearless leader. GSP in hand, off we went. 

Suter Falls was our first adventure. The icicles hanging from the rock walls were sparkling in the sunshine. The steps were a little tricky but our leader showed us how NOT to take them. Lying on your back is not the best way to descend.....He shook it off and kept on. 

Horse Pound Falls was pretty today, lots of water. Then on down into the Gulf. We crossed the creek at the bottom without any wet feet. We had lunch at the Sawmill camp. We had to get our energy up for the climb out of the Gulf. We saw lots of waterfalls, lots of rocky trail, a boulder field, more rocks, and then a pretty walk on the rim back to the cars. 

Good workout and a beautiful trail with new friends.

Pictures:

Collins Gulf Loop TTA

I drove to Savage Gulf to hike with the Columbia/Upper Cumberland TTA  group. We met at the Collins West trailhead. Our hike leader was Gary and he planned a loop for us to hike. Other hikers were Louise, Kathleen, Richard, Jeff, Jennifer, Vicky, and Cynthia and her 2 dogs. We hiked to Suter Falls and I was thinking the last time I was here it was covered in ice.... then on to Horsepound Falls which was beautiful. Everything was a little damp so the trail was a little tricky. We had some trail dancing going on. We saw a lot of wildflowers starting to bloom, Trillium, Dutchman's Britches, Bloodroot, Toothwort, Rue Anemone, Hepatica.

We hiked down into the gulf and took the spur trail to Schwoon  Spring. We got on the Connector Trail to get to Stagecoach Road. Richard took the alternate stage road, exploring the high road. We met up again and then we took the Collins Rim Trail. We checked out all the overlook spur trails. The views were really pretty, you can see the trees budding. The boulder field was challenging today as the rocks were damp and slippery. At one of the creek crossings, one hiker had to see how much water he could get in his shoes.

The rain held off and we had a beautiful day of hiking. We did somewhere between 11 and 13 miles.

Pictures: