Archive for 'RATtreks'

Whitehouse Mtn. Cliffs – April 25, 2019

cliffs
Whitehouse Mountain and cliffs

I have been to Whitehouse Mountain Cliffs many times over the years as it is one of my most favorite places located in what I call ‘my backyard’ however, my son Tyler had not yet had the pleasure of this experience. He was with us on a trip down the spine of the Flint Mountain Cliffs that sit just across the valley from the Whitehouse Mountain Cliffs back in April 2016 so, he has seen the best view possible of them but, we have not taken the time to get him on them until now. It was a brisk Spring morning as we began our trek out of the new parking lot in Rocky Fork. As you may already know, I am not a big fan of the whole ‘Rocky Fork State Park’ thing but, I will agree that a parking area was needed and now there is a rather large one to make it easier for the masses to access this pristine wilderness environment. The creek was flowing nicely as we made our way up the old (and newly graveled) road so, we stopped momentarily to enjoy the popular ‘triple waterfalls’ there.

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Posted on 16 December '19 by , under RATtreks. No Comments.

Work Trip on the Appalachian Trail – March 28, 2019

Approaching the summit of Little Bald

Another Spring season is upon us ! This means that it is time to do a walk through of my trail section to see how it has fared through the harsh Winter months. My son Tyler would be accompanying me on this work trip as we use the old abandoned gated forest road to access Whistling Gap where my section now begins / ends. This time we would end up doing a lot of work removing downed trees from the road just to be able to get to the trail before any work could be done there ! Luckily they were all small in size but, time consuming nonetheless.

There were not any significant blow downs on the section due to the CMC Monday work crew having already been on my section to take care of that. We would be moving limbs and debris and cutting back some trouble spots and spending our time mostly digging out the many water bars along the entire section as we climbed up to the summit of Little Bald aka Big Hairy. It was a warm, sunny day so we enjoyed the views and our time on the mountain. We made it to the lunch spot on the summit by 1pm where a long and well deserved rest was had.

Gaining elevation quickly on the steep trail
View of Big Bald in the distance. There used to be an unobstructed view of it when I first started working this section some 30+ yrs ago !
Looking back at the summit of Little Bald where my section begins / ends.
I take great pride in painting my white blazes. I do them free handed and have been told they are some of the best on the entire AT.
View from the TN side of Little Bald
View from the TN side of Little Bald
View from the TN side of Little Bald

From there we took the old AT down the ridge line to once again search for the old Clyde Smith memorial sign that we had been unsuccessful at finding on previous trips. Recently my friend Bol’Dar had finally located it and we had directions as to where to look. We ended up going right to it ! I knew instantly why I had not been able to find it on our previous tries as it was not where my memory of it was at all although, in my defense it has been over 20 years since we found it the first time ! Unfortunately the top half is now completely gone.

Lots of old, gnarly trees along the old ridge route
Tyler leans against a large ‘burl’ growth !
And just like that, I saw it !!
Only the bottom half remains.

What remains of the sign reads:

TRAIL ON APRIL 1 , 1976
GAVE HIS LIFE THAT YOU
MIGHT ENJOY YOUR HIKE

The best my memory can recall the top half read something like this:

IN MEMORY OF CLYDE
SMITH SIGNMAKER OF
THE APPALACHIAN

I have plans to replace this sign with a new one (that will be worded better) to honor the legendary trail maintainer and famous signmaker who died on that spot while chopping a large tree off the trail back in 1976. I will provide a complete history of the man and the progress of that project when that time comes.

We finished up digging out the water bars on our way back down the mountain. This is hard, back breaking work that is required to keep the trail from eroding away. It is harder when the Fall leaves are not raked out ahead of time as was the case this time. It took the rest of our time taking care of this and it was late evening before we would get back to the Jeep.

This tree was mashed down by a HUGE widow maker a few years ago. Once the huge tree was removed this one continued to grow in this manner.
Freshly dug out water bar
Another cleaned out water bar
Digging these out is a lot of hard work but has to be done. I have many on my section due to the steepness.
Another freshly dug water bar
In this image there is not only a freshly dug out water bar but also some dead trees I used to block off an old ridge trail (old AT) that was also being used by a local horse rider several years ago. This is a left handed turn and it was too easy to keep going straight on the old trail so it needed t be blocked.
Almost the last water bar !! (as we come down into the gap)
An area that always has blow downs ! We use them to make resting benches !
The last water bar to dig out before reaching our exit at Whistling Gap.

We always keep a cooler with Mountain Dews on ice in the Jeep as our reward for the hard days work which we enjoyed immensely as we drove out the old forest service road to the end where Tyler would perform his usual magic on the ornery old gate lock before making the 45 minute drive home.

There is an old homestead site along the old forest service road we use to access the trail. it has lots of hand stacked rock fences and piles such as this one.
Tyler working with the old lock to get the gate open for us to get out.

The trail is now in great shape and ready for the rest of horde of Northbound thru-hikers that are already coming through and we are already contemplating the dreaded weed whacking work that will have to be done in a few short months to come. It had been another productive and enjoyable day in Nature. Until next time,,,,

Posted on 11 December '19 by , under RATtreks. No Comments.

RAT-cation September 2018

Whenever it is possible, I try to take a few days off every year during my birth month to get away from the weekly struggles of work and life, and go on an adventure. This year I was able to make it happen so my son Tyler and I packed up the car and headed North for a much needed and well deserved vacation. Our first destination would require a two and a half hour drive as we planned to visit our good friend John ‘The Gnome’ Forbes aka Dr. Forbes who was working as a guide at the Breaks Interstate Park which is on the Virginia / Kentucky border. I had been there before yet, like most people, was unaware of all the amazing things the park has to offer. John had been working there long enough to intimately know every square inch of the park and then some so, he could show us most of the major highlights during our 3 day visit. We arrived early in afternoon and found him in his ‘gnomular home’ jamming out to some very loud music ! The first order of business would be to order up some food as Tyler and I had not eaten due to the lack of commercial establishments available in this extremely backwoods part of the country ! The Breaks resort restaurant serves up some very good vittles so as soon as we consumed them our adventure would begin.

Heading North through Virginia
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Posted on 1 February '19 by , under RATtreks. No Comments.

Work Trip on the Appalachian Trail – 6 – 29 – 2018

Cutting the annual growth along my section of the AT came a little later in the year than usual due to circumstances beyond my control. Add in an unusually warm and wet season and you get jungle type growth, some of which were taller than I am ! Suspecting this would be the case I decided to use a weedeater rather than the normal ‘sling blade’ method that we usually do. I like to use a weedeater every so many years anyway to give it a ‘good haircut’ and this was a good year to do that. Like anytime I go to the mountains I like to get an early as possible start and this trip would be no exception. My son Tyler and I started before daylight getting everything ready and packed into the Jeep so that as soon as our old friend Tommy ‘Bol’Dar’ Warden arrived we could depart on our quest.

Packing the Jeep at first light under a nice full moon
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Posted on 9 January '19 by , under RATtreks. No Comments.

Wolf Creek Falls and Paint Mtn. – 6 – 14-2018

Our next adventure would take us (my son Tyler Tarpley and I) to one of my favorites, the beautiful Wolf Creek Falls. Located in Cocke County near the TN / NC border not far from Hot Springs, NC., there are basically 3 or actually 4 different ways to get to them. The most known route is a long drive past Max Patch Mtn. on a very bumpy, backwoods, gravel road. Fairly high clearance would be a plus for this route. This will get you within less than half mile easy walking of the falls. Another variation (and shorter drive if you are coming from the TN side) is to drive in from Del Rio, TN., on the road that goes to the primitive Round Mtn. Campground as it intersects with the before mentioned route.

Wolf Creek Falls
Wolf Creek Falls (photo by Tyler Tarpley)
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Posted on 5 January '19 by , under RATtreks. No Comments.

Work Trip on the Appalachian Trail – 3-27-2018

Normally I do the ‘Pre-Spring walk-through’ sometime in February to check the condition of my trail section, mainly to get information to the saw crews as to how many blow-downs there are that will require a chainsaw and their locations, pictures, etc., however, due to the bad weather and snow we had this year it was late March before we (my son Tyler and I) could get in to the section. There was still snow on the ground but, we did not have any issues and was able to complete the task. There had been a lot of storms with high winds recently along with a round of freezing rain which was reported to us to have brought down a lot of limbs and debris. We were expecting the worst but, were pleasantly surprised to find the trail condition was about average for the amount of damage and the heavier work would be needed on the lower half of what used to be part of my section until recently. We got an early start with anticipation of having to saw several trees off the gated forest service road we use to access my section but, were happy to find only one along the road and another smaller one at the parking area. We sawed those out in a quick and efficient manner and were soon packed up and headed up the blue blazed access trail towards the campsite at Whistling Gap.

view

View from the TN side summit of Little Bald

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Posted on 11 April '18 by , under RATtreks. No Comments.

Tennessee Talus ! – 2-27-2018

Finding any form of ‘talus’  East of the Rocky Mountains is a rare thing however, there are a few instances of it found along the Appalachian Mountain chain. Mostly in the Northern sector as it is very seldom found this far South yet, we are lucky to have some fine examples of it right here in our local mountains. The best and largest examples are found on Unaka Mountain but, we do know of a few other sizeable areas of it on some other local slopes as well. This one in particular is equally as large in area but, the size of the rocks are somewhat smaller than the larger sized ones on Unaka. A small part of these could actually be classified as ‘scree’. We have known about these ‘rock fields’ for many years yet, never gave them much thought until a few years ago when we actually set our boots on the massive stones on Unaka which fueled our desire to check out some of the other ones we knew existed. We finally got around to checking out the next largest (in comparison to Unaka)  patch of talus and although I will not share the exact location or provide any pics that may give away their home, I will share a few close up shots of the talus fields to show the enormous size of them and just how steep these stacked stones are. I have always been curious as to how these massive stone fields were formed and more so as to how they manage to stay in place on such a steep angle. From a lot of hands on research of all the huge talus fields found on Unaka over several trips there, I have concluded that they used to be cliffs that were destroyed by either earthquakes, fire, freeze and thaw, or all the above. I am not so sure about this new investigation as the stones are smaller and much looser and harder to walk upon. It will always remain a curiosity in my mind until someone of authority can shed more light on these wonderful rock collections that flow down some of the steepest and most rugged of the mountains found around here. Getting to them is as hard a hike as I have ever been on so, fortunately they do protect themselves from being exploited by the masses.

talus

Looking up from the bottom of the main talus field. Although this view shows way over a football field long of talus, this actual field is at least 3 times that in length with at least one more continuing into the tree line at the top !

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Posted on 10 April '18 by , under RATtreks. No Comments.

Unnamed Waterfall on Unaka Mtn – 2-8-2018

Welcome to the new year, 2018 ! Although we did go on an amazing adventure in January, it was to a sacred location that we visit yearly that I do not share with anyone other than those that have accompanied me on that journey each year for quite some time now. So, this would be our second adventure of the new year. With only time for a quick trip and with water levels at high tide, I decided to take Tyler to an unnamed waterfall that not many know about on Unaka Mountain. We got our usual early start but, were surprised by higher water levels than we actually expected which made crossing the creek a few times very interesting ! I was wearing my muck boots (which are knee high on me)  yet, the water was actually higher than they were in some places ! It was a cold day and there was some light ice forming on the laurel leaves around the falls from the heavy spray. It is just under 2 miles to these very well hidden falls and we made good time in getting there. It was a cloudy day but, was forecast to clear early so I wanted to get there as soon as I could for the best lighting as I did not possess any decent pics of these falls. The light was still good when we found them but, the attempt was futile due to the high amount of water that was flowing as there was just too much white water to get any quality pics. Since hardly no one visits these falls there is no trail whatsoever to them and nowhere to easily setup around them. I did what I could and just spent the rest of the time enjoying the pristine beauty and wildness of the area. We will come back another day when the water level is not so high.

falls

Tyler and I at an unnamed waterfall on Unaka Mountain.

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Posted on 8 April '18 by , under RATtreks. No Comments.

Great Channels of Va. and Airplane Rock – 12-28-2017

Ever since my first trip to the Great Channels of Virginia a few years ago and upon seeing the huge rock formation perched high on a nearby ridge from there, that I started calling that day the ‘airplane rock’ , I have wanted to go there. Despite a few more trips to the area without accomplishing that goal, it was on my last trip there on 11-10-2016 as we were showing Larry Jarret the area, that my friend John Forbes and I vowed that we would stand upon the airplane rock before the next year (2017) was over ! That being said and with 2017 being almost over, the opportunity was presented for a return trip to the great channels in late December 2017 when another friend of ours, Scott ‘The Professor’ Burns was to be passing through our area and had asked if we could assist with marking something off his ‘bucket list’ which was a visit to see the great channels. Of course we all jumped at the chance and had high hopes of leaving early enough to have enough time for a full tour of the channels and still be able to get out to explore the airplane rock on our way out. A plan was formulated and finally the day came when my son Tyler and I would be leaving right after I clocked out of work at 4 am to pick John up at his house and hopefully arrive to meet Scott at the trail head before the first light.

group

Group shot in the ‘geometry room’

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Posted on 5 April '18 by , under RATtreks. No Comments.

Coyote Falls – 12-21-2017

The next thing on our list would be Coyote Falls. After waiting a long time for water levels to recover enough to make it worth visiting, we finally got our chance. I had not been to these falls in over 20 years and did not have any pics of them as we rarely carried cameras back then. Tyler had never been there so, on a chilly mid December morning we made our way to the area to find a place to park along the road to see if I could still remember how to get there ! There is no designated trail head nor is there a marked trail for these falls but, in recent years someone did list them on TN. Landforms so, their gps coordinates are easily known meaning, they get way more visitors than ever before. Parking beside the road at a place where some very inconsiderate people dump dead animals and trash, we jumped the guardrail and proceeded to look for the correct hollow that we would follow to the falls. It was not hard to locate and we were soon climbing the fairly steep route up this part of Unaka Mountain.

falls

Coyote Falls

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Posted on 22 March '18 by , under RATtreks. No Comments.