Turtletown Falls 12.18.18

This hike was both good and bad for me.  First the bad.  I forgot my GPS so I couldn't make a map of the hike and its location.  My bad!  The second thing is that my camera was not working correctly.  Somehow I had pressed a button and now I had focusing issues.  Hence the lack of a group picture.  Finally got it figured out and was lucky enough to not walk off a cliff while I was trying to keep up and fix the camera at the same time.  Now the good.  What a great winter hike!  I had never been there before so thanks to those who are finding these new hiking spots.  There were 17 of  us on this approximately 3.5 mile hike.  The duration was about 3 hrs and 20 minutes and I would rate it moderate.  The length of time being due to the time spent at the falls and our snack break.  The falls were double and really roaring as you can see from the water spots on the pictures.  I really hope to return to this hike this summer as the magnolias were everywhere.   Thanks to those that sent in pictures and these pictures can be seen here.  

Deep Creek 12.15.18

We had a very good Saturday hike.  Our hike started at the Soddy Gulf Park on Big So0ddy Creek.  We hiked to the Big Soddy "new" Bridge and then on to the "new-slightly rebuilt" Deep Creek Bridge.  During all this our hike leader also took us on a one mile side trip down the "wrong" fork in the trail.  So, all-in-all, we logged about 9 miles; but it was a perfect day for a hike (cloudy, temp. in the 50's, with damp but sure trail footing).  Big Soddy, Deep Creek, and several unnamed side creeks were flowing very well.  We had four hikers for today's hike (including a mother and her daughter who did about one-half of the hike.  I would rate this hike as strenuous (or at least it felt that way to me).  The rating is due to length and terrain features.  If you would like to see some photos,click here.