The Soddy Daisy Chapter met on Saturday morning at the Durham
Street parking lot by 8:00 a.m. and proceeded to carpool to our starting point
at the Lower Leggett Road trailhead. I was very happy to see George Bonneau
& John Politte back from their 15 day European River Cruise vacation and
ready to hit the trails once again. After they visited the Red Light district of
Amsterdam I wasn’t so sure they would ever return but I forgot that they had
Sarah & Cookie with them and I’m sure they were on a very short leash –
Lol. John was our very capable hike leader today and for a very
humid and muggy Saturday hike I felt we had a reasonable turnout with six
hikers; Gloria, Joan, George, John, Tom & myself. Our good friend Boodie
Fox is still recuperating from his mishaps due to the poor trail conditions at
the North Chickamauga Segment hike last Saturday so hopefully he will be getting back to the
trail with us soon.
The hike was advertised as approximately 8 miles and slightly
strenuous but it turned out with a little tweaking from our hike leader to be
just over 10 miles and strenuous - Lol. We left the Lower Leggett trailhead
parking lot at about 8:30 a.m. and proceeded on the lower connector trail
heading towards the junction with the main trail, after about 1.2 miles we
arrived at the split and took what I would call the upper loop trail to the
right which climbed steadily out of the Rock Creek Gorge towards the junction
near the upper trailhead on Leggett Rd.. We paused for a minute as we were
heading up to allow everyone to regroup and someone noted that there was nary a
breeze blowing that morning and I made the mistake and mentioned it would
probably be nice if we encountered a light shower along the way, not knowing
what would come later. Near the top we passed the side trail on the left,
blazed in yellow, which leads to the Leggett Point Overlook. We bypassed the
Overlook today due
to the fact that most of us had been there and done that before and we had a 10
mile hike to complete but the side trail does open up into a panoramic view of
the Rock Creek Gorge and where it’s not uncommon to spot hawks and the
occasional eagle passing by. Further up the trail we took the junction trail on
the left (what some refer to as the shortcut) and headed back down the ridgeline
in a steep descent towards the Boiling Springs Bridge. Once we crossed the
Boiling Springs Branch we had about 2.3 miles to reach the Rock Creek Bridge,
our final destination, but along the way we passed by or over the Rock Creek
Overlook, Flat Branch Bridge, Rocky Branch Bridge as well as Leggett Branch (a
great cascading waterfall to your right during the wet weather season but just a
trickle today) and
just before making it to the bridge we passed through the Rock Creek Campsite
where we found a father – daughter duo camping for the weekend. Once at the
bridge there is a large sloping rock above the creek to sit upon and where we
had a well-deserved lunch break. We were all very fortunate today since Tom brought
some of his fresh & delicious peach/blackberry cobbler for us to enjoy,
thanks for treat Tom! Well I guess that all good things have to come to an end
so we gathered up our belongings and headed back towards the trailhead where we
started. About the time I reached the Boiling Springs Bridge on the way back I
could hear the rumble of thunder in the distance and I knew my fellow hikers
behind me would be picking up their pace to try and make it out before the rains
came but that wasn’t going to happen. This time instead of returning by way of
the upper loop we had already planned to take the lower loop trail of the Rock
Creek Loop back to the trailhead and after several more rumbles of thunder a
light shower began about .75 miles prior to reaching the junction with the
connector trail but with the tree cover it felt great. By the time I reached
the junction it was a steady downpour so I donned my poncho (it seemed that the
rain stopped just after putting on the poncho) and just over 1 mile later I made
it to the parking lot before 2:00 p.m. where I waited for the others to arrive.
I learned an important lesson today and that’s be careful what you ask for because you may
just get it and then some! Happy Hiking! For a few pictures click here or on the picture to the right.