Jacks River Falls 1.18.2025

 

Despite the possibility of rain on a day with temperatures in the low 40’s, Tom, Cynthia, and hike leader Betsy made our way down Beech Bottom Creek Trail to the Jacks River and then along the river to the spectacular Jacks River Falls. The first trail descends gradually down and around several ridges, so it wasn’t bad going up on the return trip. Although there were indeed a fair number of downed trees, as reported in AllTrails, all except two were easy to step over or under or around. The one big exception was a douzy! A big tree had fallen across a whitewater creek at exactly the spot where there had been stepping stones. Further upstream, all three of us were able to prance across rocks to the other side, but unfortunately the latter was a steep wooded hillside with a steeper rockface along the side of the creek. Since it seemed probable that anyone taking the latter route would slip into the creek on this cold day, we all tried to detour by going uphill. After several aborted attempts up slick slopes and/or through gobs of thorny greenbrier, we finally made it over to the continuation of the trail. There we discovered that the creek just below the downed tree could probably be crossed with only one wet step. This proved to be the case on our way back, thank goodness. All agreed that the multilayered falls was well worth the 9.1-mile round trip hike, even with the bushwhacking detour (which we were glad we did not have to do twice). Our drive into and out of the Cohutta Wilderness for this hike was not bad at all, especially since the highest dirt road had just been graded.

 

Savage Gulf 1.14.2025

 

Hike leader Betsy and Tammy, Tom, and Tim (the three T’s) ventured out to Savage Gulf State Park after a week of snow, then ice, then more ice, having determined that the roads on the plateau had more or less recovered from the wintry weather. The weather was good, somewhat on the cold side but manageable. What was not manageable, however, was the trail to Collins Gulf once it became steep. Ice was plentiful and slick! This was at least partly due to hikers who had gone down the trail earlier in the week and turned the snow into ice. Fortunately Tammy was familiar with the relatively flat Savage loop Trail at the nearby east entrance to the park, so we headed there and had a fine time! We even checked out Savage Falls without much trouble. We racked up 5 to 6 miles and felt virtuous. Another glorious day in the great outdoors!