Fall Creek Falls 2.28.2023

Twenty hikers enjoyed beautiful spring-like weather at Fall Creek Falls State Park  Tuesday, February 28, 2023. First we hiked the Base of the Falls Trail. Here we experienced the roaring Fall Creek Falls as we descended into the  gorge featuring tall rock walls, a massive rock house, the cascading Fall Creek and large Hemlocks.  Recent abundant rainfall produced excellent flow on all the waterfalls we visited: Fall Creek Falls, Coon Falls, Cane Creek Falls, Rockhouse Falls, Cane Creek Cascades and Piney Falls.  We crossed two suspension bridges on the Overlook Trail and the Piney Falls Trail. The Overlook Trail bridge stretches across Cane Creek and Cane Creek Cascades. The second bridge crosses beautiful Piney Creek. Our day included visiting many overlooks, including Fall Creek Falls Overlook, Fall Creek Gorge, Cane Creek Gorge, Cane Creek Falls Overlook, Caplenor Point,  Millikan’s Overlook and Buzzard’s  Roost.  We enjoyed a picnic lunch on picnic tables near Cane Creek Cascades and the Nature Center.  Joan Hartvigsen was our hike leader and Tom McElhone served as “sweep”.  Tom did an excellent job of keeping track of all twenty of us!

This hike was just over four miles and lasted 4 hours and 15 minutes.

If you would like to see a bunch of photos including maps and altitude graph, taken during this hike click here or on the picture above.  

Cloudland Canyon 1.25.2023

Trip leader Betsy, Tammy, Maggie, and Rita, who is a new hiker with us, had a fine hike despite several unexpected developments. First, the hike scheduled for this day was up north in Big Creek Gulch in South Cumberland State Park. The weather reports for that day were not good earlier in the week and then got steadily worse. However, at the same time the Chattanooga weather reports were getting somewhat better. And Trenton’s were better still! The hike leader cancelled the Big Creek hike and told signed-up hikers about her replacement hike to Sitton Gulch and Cloudland Canyon.

Four of us decided to risk afternoon rain and spent a lovely morning hiking Sitton Gulch, then continuing up to Hemlock and Cherokee Falls. How did that huge boulder get in Hemlock Falls and who put it there?!? After pondering this question, we went all the way to the top and checked out the main overlook, which is right over the confluence of Daniel and Bear Creeks. None of us chose to take the obvious shortcut down to our cars. Instead, we hiked over to the Bear Creek Backcountry trail and went down to inspect the creek, which has quite a solid cliff overhanging it and enough water to make us skip the crossing. Instead we checked out a very beautiful small waterfall slightly downstream. Before heading back up, we took a side path toward a couple of large boulders. Somebody who can remain nameless thought it would be a good idea to jump from the first boulder to the second. The first boulder turned out to be slippery; the unnamed person is now mostly recovered from the resulting boulder bash. When we got ourselves back up to the top, the rain finally arrived. Two of us went back down 600 steps and Sitton Gulch to the cars and two of us walked the flat mile or so to the Ranger Station/Gift Shop to wait for retrieval. All’s well that ends well. But no more jumping! 

If you would like to see some pictures taken during this hike, click here.  

My mood ring is missing and I don't know how I feel about that!