Laurel Falls 10.16.18

WELCOME BACK NANCY!  Our snowbird Nancy is back and she led this hike!  After several head counts we determined that we had a very large group of 19!  The day was overcast and we were a little worried about rain, but all we got was a couple of drops about midway through the hike.  This hike was rated as easy-moderate.  The moderate part was the distance and that we had to crawl through a hole in some rocks to continue on the trail.  When we reached Laurel Falls it was flowing nicely and everyone sat on one of the large rocks and had a snack.  The rain held off until we were comfortable eating our lunch.  This hike was a total of 5.4 miles and lasted just about 4 hours.  Following the hike, most of the hikers had a nice lunch meal at the Screen Door in Dayton.  If you would like to see a lot of pictures including a map and altitude graph, click here.  Thank you John P. for contributing some of the pictures.

Booker T. Washington S. P. 10.13.18

Well, I sort of made a mistake.  I failed to look at the schedule for the 13th and missed a hike I would have liked to have taken.  Anyway, the hike was led by Jean.  One of our snowbird regulars, Nancy A., joined us as she was escaping a Maine Winter.  This was Jean's first experience as a hike leader.  While leading, she had a minor hiccup and lost five hikers.  Luckily for cell phones and the two groups rejoined coming from opposite directions.  Donna P. split off at this point and led a few on a longer loop.  Nancy, on her first outing in a while, fell victim to that old hikers adage, "it's only a quarter mile away...".  Overall it was a great fall day for hiking and everyone had a great time, especially Jean!  If you would like to see a few pictures of the group, click here. 

Another very nice hike led by Trish.  This time we headed for a further away location along the Ocoee River.  Trish had the forethought to call the ranger station and check on the trails beforehand.  She was told that our original selection was probably not the best idea and could possibly be washed out.  Therefore, she led us on a trail that was not the original selection.  It worked out wonderfully.  The day was a overcast for the most part and this made it much cooler than some of our recent hikes.  We had an excellent turnout of sixteen hikers.  The water table was the lowest I have ever seen.  Because of this, we had an excellent opportunity to see what was normally hidden by water.  This hike did take a little longer than usual at 3 hrs and 8 min.  I was expecting about a 4.5 mile hike, but the distance shown on my GPS, was 5.6 miles.  Up on finishing, I counted 14 souls which equates to about an 88% return rate.  Pretty good I think!  Actually we all made it back to our vehicles for the longish ride back to our original meeting place in Ooltewah.  If you would like to see a bunch of pictures, including a map and altitude graph, click here. 

Glenn Falls 10.2.18

Fourteen of us started at the trailhead across the road from Ruby Falls on Tuesday, October 2. After a short walk on the Whiteside trail we started up the Shingle trail and looped back down the mountain to Ochs highway. Here we crossed the road to the Glen Falls Trail. We received our reward as we reached the Falls area because it was running fairly strong following the recent rains. It was a treat to explore this beautiful area as we climbed up through the rocks to view the area from a variety of perspectives. On the way back, some hikers took a shortcut down to St. Elmo while others retraced their steps back to the parking lot. We all met up again at a new lunch spot, The Parkway, on Riverfront Parkway. Everyone agreed, it is now near the top of our favorite lunch spots.  If you would like to see some pictures, click here.

This was one of our longer hikes.  I would rate this 6.2 mile, 4 1/2 hour hike as easy-moderate.  The moderate part is because of the distance, temperature and one moderate up-hill section.  It was definitely a very humid day with not a breath of air flowing.  The thirteen hikers were soaked with perspiration at the end. We met some of the hikers at Reflection Riding and then drove to the Gazebo.  This was a good plan as this removed about 1.5 miles of an already long hike.  Skyuka Springs was flowing, but the amount of water was quite low.  At the springs, we enjoyed a break for a snack.  Five of the hikers left us and returned at this point.  Just as we ended the hike, the rains came.  Lucky we were at our vehicles before it rained hard.   I took a couple of group pictures at the springs, but for some reason, they just weren't there when I downloaded all of the pictures.  I have no idea why.  I guess someone was not smiling!  Anyway if you would like to see some pictures of the hike including a couple map pictures and an altitude graph, click here.