Big Soddy Creek 3.24.18

Tom and Don were the only hikers on this Saturday hike. We began the hike at Black Valley Road

under overcast and lightly raining skies. The temperature was in the upper 40's. We followed the trail

west along Soddy Creek for a little over a mile to the bridge that crosses the creek. The trail along this

section is basically a gravel road. We passed a water falls which was running fairly well. We crossed

the bridge and instead of following the blazed trail north which then meets up with the Cumberland

Trail, we decided to follow the unblazed trail southwest and follow the creek. We traveled about 1.2

miles along this trail to a point where it split. We took the trail up the mountain approximately .2 miles

to a rocky bluff where the trail splits again. This part of the trail was fairly steep and slippery due to

the recent rains. At the split it started to rain again and we decided to descend back to the creek due to

the trails slipperiness. We followed the trail along the creek until we reached the edge of the park

boundary. We followed the trail back to the bridge and traveled north to the park boundary gate that

leads to the Cumberland Trail. We then turned around and trekked out of the park. Don and I had what we considered a good 5 mile hike.

If you would like to see a few pictures of this hike, click here.  

Heiss Mountain 3.20.18

What a great hike.  Heiss Mtn. has been one of my favorites for years.  The day started off hazy, overcast and damp.  It ended overcast and damp.  It had been raining the previous day so the trail was a bit slippery in both directions.  The group consisted of ten hikers and was led by Renee.  This hike is rated as moderate, but since it is steep coming out I would rate the return as moderate++.  The hike took about 2 hours 12 minutes and this included a stop at the bridge on the Big Possum Creek.  The distance was 2.6 miles.  If you'll notice there is a big guy in a red shirt in a lot of the pictures, but none of the pictures has his face, very strange?
There are a couple pictures of what we call the waffle stone.  If any one who reads this knows the real name of this formation and or how it was formed please let me know.  If you would like to see some pictures, click here.  There is also a graph of the altitudes and a map picture of the route at the end of the photos. 

Brady Mountain 3.17.18

Brady mtn is a fantastic hike.  Especially when someone like Boodie is leading it. The trail we hiked was moderately strenuous (my opinion).   We hiked 4 miles in. Three of those mile were a steep climb 😩.  The weather was great. Hiking to the first overlook and seeing Brady cove made the whole day.   Boodie, George, Tom, and Ed along with Carolyn from Rome county made the trip. Thank you Edward and Thomas for the pictures!
If you would like to see a couple additional pictures, click here.

Lookout Mountain (Skyuka Springs) 3.13.318

Today, we hiked the West side of Lookout Mountain.  We started on the Lower Truck Trail for about .45 miles to the old Blue Beaver Trail.  This trail climbs .73 miles to the Skyuka trail with a few rocks which can be easily avoided.  Here we turned right on a very nice footpath for 2.6 miles on a mostly gentle downslope to Skyuka Springs.  After a stop here to enjoy the springs, we returned by way of the Lower Truck Trail , a very flat and easy walk along Lookout Creek.  The distance of this hike turned out to be 6.44 miles and I would rate it as moderate.  The only moderate part was a 1.3 mile climb at the beginning.  There were 17 happy hikers on this hike and after the hike we sort of split up and went to different eateries in St. Elmo.  My group ate at the Purple Daisy which was very good.
If you would like to see some pictures, click here.  Note that at the end of the pictures is a map of where we hiked and a graph showing how steep the initial climb was.  Hope you like it as it took me hours to figure out how to do it!!

Heiss Mtn. 3.10.18

Soddy Daisy hikers Tom, Steve, and John hiked this strenuous trail segment. The hike was supposed to be at Fall Creek Falls today but, due to the rainy weather we we changed the hike to a local trail. It turned out to be wet (sprinkles) for about the first hour of the hike.

Due to wet trail and rock surfaces on our way out to the Little Possum bridge we were extra careful about where we stepped. 

I would rate this hike as strenuous, especially the return leg from the Little Creek Bridge.

If you would like to see some excellent pictures, click here.