Roaring Creek and beyond

Today's hike was one of the chapter’s favorites, we met in Soddy Daisy and carpooled  to the Roaring Creek Trailhead.  Today’s hike leader was the reputable Bob McGavock, I believe Bob enjoys the task of telling people where to go, ahem I mean hike.  When we left the parking lot headed for Graysville, Tn the temperature was a brisk 32 degrees but with a promise from the weatherman that it would be climbing continually throughout the morning to a high of low to mid 50’s so I knew we would be breaking a sweat early on.  For some unknown reason our usual group of 8 to 12 devoted Saturday hikers were noticeably absent today and we were a small group of only 5 but we were still looking forward to our trek.   Today was going to be especially enjoyable since we decided to bushwack past the current End of Trail sign and head towards Gilbreath Creek.  This is the trail that I understand some of the Spring Break Away volunteers may be working on this coming March.  Somewhere past Gilbreath Creek going North is where we as volunteers worked with the University of Kansas students in May and added a trail segment heading north towards Highway 30.  Also during the National Public Lands Day we worked on extending this segment over a Saturday and Sunday with many other volunteers so Roaring Creek trail may be approx. 8 miles in length from start to finish in the next year or so.  It will be dropping down for the present time into Cranmore Cove since the land acquisition has not been completed to date that would take us to Highway 30 and on to Snow Falls.  As usual I digress so back to the trail!  We hiked along a fairly steep ridge line for just under a mile crossing a dry creek bed along the way before reaching the extremely steep ravine with Gilbreath Creek at the bottom.  We could view the creek below through the trees and it looked to be approx. 200’ to 300’ below.  At this point we turned back since the underbrush was getting way too thick to proceed along the flag lines on the ridge.  When we returned to the End of Trail sign we had a very pleasant surprise, there we were met by no less than 16 hikers from the TTA Upper Cumberland Chapter led by the ever capable Louise Miniard, such a great turn-out to be so far from home.  These ladies and gentlemen are serious about their hiking and we’ve had the luxury of enjoying their company on many other hikes in the past year.  We had lunch with them at the Cranmore Cove Overlook and also enjoyed the company of the lone feral goat that lives along the ridges of Graysville Mountain.  It was amazing how close he would come to humans looking for a hand out of food.  Well all good times have to end so we parted ways with the Upper Cumberland group and headed back down to the trailhead parking lot and with the extra mileage thrown in that was off trail I’m sure it was a pleasure to get back to the vehicles.  The trek was just over 10 miles and I would rate it as moderate to strenuous with the off trail portion included.  All in all we had a great time today and I for one look forward to many more with the great companions that I’m fortunate in getting to hike with.  Thank you Larry for the great description.