Durham Mines Pre-hike 7.11.2024

 Five of us decided that it would be best if we pre-hiked this trail prior to the club hike in August.  It's a good thing we did as there are many intersecting trails within the network of trails.  The map shows our route.  
If you would like to see a map and altitude graph of this hike, click here.  

Gee Creek 7.9.2024

 What brings six hikers into the woods on a hot, humid day? Why, a beautiful creek that twists & drops multiple times creating beautiful cascades & waterfalls, of course!!

The hike to Gee Creek Falls has it all… water falling everywhere, rock scrambles, a mysterious ending point, & an intriguing relic concrete structure that remains in place today.

Always up for a good adventure were Tom, Carl, John, Mike, Lori, and hike leader Jennifer. The first part of the hike is just an easy walk through the woods but quickly begins to get rocky with a slight incline. After passing several cascades, the group encountered its first rock scramble, which required some careful footwork. Next, we spotted something very unnatural in a natural setting… a concrete flume of some sort. After the hike, we learned that the structure was a concrete water diverter or flume placed there by the Tennessee Copper Company. The company, in operation from 1825-1860, wasn’t mining copper at Gee Creek but instead using the flume to wash mined silica that was used in the copper smelting process… providing flux for furnaces processing copper. Almost 200 years later, Gee Creek still flows through this flume today!

Soon, the group made it to Gee Creek Falls… a beautiful 25 ft. waterfall. The beauty of the falls isn’t its height but how water diverts around stones to create a twin waterfall effect. After taking a break & getting a great group picture at the falls, some of the group soldiered on for more adventure. Crossing the creek meant getting our feet in the water. We all decided just to plow through in our hiking shoes & boots (who has time to put on water shoes?!… haha!), and the water felt amazing! After crossing two creeks & scrambling through more rocks, we came to several cascades & another beautiful waterfall. This was our turnaround spot. The trail does continue on after this point, but the trail is a bit overgrown, requires many creek crossings, hurdling lots of blowdown, & following a faint trail that eventually disappears, so we decided to save that adventure for another day. We had a great group & had a good time on the trail. We also had a tasty lunch after the hike at The Local Goat near the carpool meetup location in Ooltewah.  

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

The love triangle soon turned into a wrecktangle.

Emory Creek 7.6.2024

 Our group included Tammy, Dave, Calley, Mike, Tom, and hike leader Betsy. These six intrepid hikers braved high humidity and nine creek crossings to make their way to an impressively high waterfall on Emery Creek. Some also ventured to the top of the waterfall to discover a whole string of waterfalls further upstream. Then we all kept going up the main trail to a couple more waterfalls! Even though the side trail went only to the top of the bigger waterfall, it was worth the extra distance—especially when a most curious thing happened when a one of us sat on the lip of the high falls. He heard voices right below him! Very careful inspection led to the discovery of a ledge about six feet below the lip, occupied by a couple of chattering people. How they got there is a mystery.

 Everyone survived all the creek crossings. Some crossed these creeks a lot faster than others as they didn’t care about getting their shoes/boots wet. Some tried to jump from rock to rock; some of these also got their shoes/boots wet. For the first and by far the deepest crossing, most of us changed into our water shoes and set out across the relatively calm and apparently shallow water. The ones who took longer to get into their water shoes had the advantage of seeing which routes were least deep. Some got their shorts wetter than others. On the way back, a couple of people explored new routes across. The one who went to the rocky stretch above the whitewater hopped successfully from rock to rock. The one who crossed directly below the whitewater slid up to her neck into the water while trying to scramble up a pointy—and very slick—rock. Hey, it felt good! It was a hot day! And the smart phone in her pocket shook off the dunking well.   

 Next time, let’s everyone remember that the best way to the first creek crossing is to bear left after going up the steps. Do NOT go up any further.

No pictures of this hike.  

Hall Road Segment. 6.29.2024

 Celia and Tom and trip leader Betsy had a fine 6-mile out-and-back hike on a relatively new piece of the Cumberland Trail on Signal Mountain. The “Hall Road Trailhead” is actually at the end of Old Anderson Road, which branches off Hall Road about 0.7 mile from US 127. It is also known as the Lone Oak Trailhead. The parking area has room for about 4-6 vehicles. The trail is in fine shape. It ambles along the top of the plateau for a while, then gradually descends to North Chickamauga Creek. At the creek, the trail crosses a new bridge and turns downstream. The pleasant trail along the creek is close to flat for quite a distance, then diverts up and around some steep terrain a few times. We three hikers were lucky that the weather was fairly mild, considering that only three days before, the temperature in Chattanooga hit 100 degrees. On our hike, the  temperature increased only to the mid-eighties, so that even the climb up and out of the gorge on the way back was not unpleasant. Betsy had her clippers with her, so now there are fewer barbed greenbrier along the trail. The latter has a very nasty tendency to reach out and scratch passing hikers, but on the other hand, it provides sustenance to many animals, especially deer (which seem to have steel-lined mouths).

 Alas, this piece of the Cumberland Trail is left dangling to the SW. Hopefully it will one day be connected to the Signal and Edwards Point Section. To the NE, it is 12.5 miles from Hall Road trailhead to Barker Camp trailhead, with about 1500’ of elevation gain. We’ve got to do this whole segment sometime!

Sorry, but there are no pictures to accompany this report.