Falling Water 11.28.17

There were 14 hikers on this Falling Water hike!  It was an absolutely beautiful day with some water flowing in the creek and also along side the trail.  Some of the hikers enjoyed the overlook and there was water over the falls.  After the hike some of the hikers went to Home Folks for a delicious lunch.   If you would like to see some really nice pictures, click here.

Raccoon Mtn. 11.25.17

Larry H. says,

Wow, what a great hike I had with the Soddy Daisy Hiking Club today leading down and around Racoon Mtn.. I had planned to solo hike today until I spoke with George B. yesterday (the best hiking buddy anyone could ask for) and he informed me of the club's intended hike leading down from Racoon Mtn. and he also threw in that it would be a new trail for me which sucked me right on in to wanting to go with them this morning.

The only thing I wasn't aware of was that the trail was shared usage with the mountain bikers. The bikers were out in force today too but we only had to yield right of way to them about 6 times or so but was glad to do it since it was exciting to watch some of them maneuver their bikes on the more technically advanced sections of the trail. My thanks goes out to the SORBA Chattanooga group that was responsible for providing these awesome trails for combined usage. On July 17, 2005, SORBA Chattanooga and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) entered into a land management agreement allowing SORBA Chattanooga to build and maintain mountain bike accessible trails at the TVA Raccoon Mountain Pumped Storage Facility.

About ten of us met at the Red Bank-Food City Parking Lot and several of us drove to the Racoon Mtn. TVA Pump Facility so we could stage our vehicles in order to prevent us from having to hike both down and then back up the mountain, although on the last leg of our journey we had a surprise ascent of about half way back up the mountain to intersect with the nearby road below us that was apparently climbing up the side of the ridge as we were heading up on the trail - Lol.

The initial trailhead led from one of the Laurel Point's parking lots and we made our way along the Laurel Point trail down to the High Voltage trailhead which became fairly steep in places as we descended almost 1500 feet in elevation. Once at the mountain's base we connected with the Live Wire 2 trailhead and proceeded to our intended destination of the parking lot across from the Live Wire 2 terminal point.

All in all we had great weather today for our hike as we completed somewhere between 7 to 8 miles of trail (my GPS showed 8.1, another hiker's GPS showed 8.2 and George's showed a little over 7 but based on my legs I felt we had done a solid 8 but maybe not - Lol). This was a little more than some would have preferred to hike today but when all was said and done it appeared everyone appreciated the weather, the trail, the fall color on many of the trees and especially the fellowship!

Happy Hiking!

If you would like to see some pictures of the hike, click here.  

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNmpnAWFhHbrp8YZXuZu8I-oYNGgWfSir9m-PSUbCagg6VgxoUrVh8KAPP540qLYw?key=ZUI3Y2dxVDdnVUNJc0JCNk1BNms4a2tEWEx3ODFR