RATtreks

Longarm Branch and Wilderness Falls 11-29-2010

What turned out to be the last day of the warm and sunny weather of Indian Summer before the changeover to more winter-like conditions, was spent hiking with my friends Bol’Dar and Dave on a trip to the Longarm Branch Falls and Wilderness Falls. These are located in the Clark’s Creek area inside the Sampson Mountain Wilderness area. Although there was not much water flowing, Dave had not yet been to the upper Longarm Branch Falls and we wanted to take him to the Wilderness Falls on the way back in order to obtain a GPS waypoint for them. This was needed in order to list them with the TN. Landforms site and allow us to name them since Bol’Dar was the one who first discovered them. We did succeed in this and they are now listed there.

Middle Wilderness Falls 150 '

Leaving ‘Hairnt-quarters’ around 10 am, we arrived at the Longarm Branch trail-head by around 10:30 am. We could hear winds roaring high overhead bringing in the impending front, but it was mostly sunny and warm as we headed up the Longarm Branch trail past the lower falls. There are numerous cascades along this route as you make your way up the rocky old road that is now basically a horse and foot trail. Looking at it now, it is hard to believe that many years ago we used to drive Jeeps, Volkswagons, and motorcycles on this same road ! It is about 2 miles to the upper Longarm Branch Falls. The sun was shining at the wrong angle and there was not much water so we took what photos we could, took a snack break, and then headed back down to where the turn off to the Wilderness Falls is. This is about a mile between the trail-head and the upper falls.

Upper Longarm Branch Falls 11-29-2010

The journey to the Wilderness Falls is only about a half mile but seems further due to there not being much of a trail leading to them. Perhaps this is why they have not been discovered before now. It took only about 30 minutes to reach what we call the lower falls. They are about 20 to 25 feet in height.

Lower Wilderness Falls

Just beyond this, climbing higher you reach the lower part of the middle falls. These are also about 25 to 30  feet or more in height and looking up from here you can begin to see the extremely tall part of the middle falls. The entire height of these middle falls combined is at least 150 feet ! You can now see the location and coordinates of these falls on the TN Landforms website and they also allowed us to name them Wilderness Falls.  It seems even the Forest Service was unaware of their existence. To show the height of the lower part better, here is a photo I took of Dave standing below them as I climbed around them. Of course that was zoomed so this is what it looked like to me !

Lower part of Middle Wilderness Falls

Upper part of Middle Wilderness Falls

Upper part of Middle Wilderness Falls

Upper part of Middle Wilderness Falls

Photo taken by Bol'Dar 10-2009 during higher water period

There is an upper set of falls and more cascades beyond the middle falls but getting to them requires some dangerous climbing but, I will post a picture as soon as we get a good one. After climbing to the base of the middle falls and hanging out for awhile, it was getting late afternoon so we began the arduous climb back down, carefully retracing our steps back down and out to the Longarm Branch trail. It did not take long to hike the mile back to the lower Longarm Branch Falls where we took a few pics before reaching the vehicle. It was becoming windy and the clouds were moving in by this time as it was to start raining later that night. As always it was another great day to be in the woods enjoying all that Nature has to offer. We are already looking forward to the next adventure.

Cascades along upper Longarm Branch Creek

Lower Longarm Branch Falls

Lower Longarm Branch Falls

For more photo’s of all these waterfalls, please visit our photo gallery here.