RATtreks

Back to Elk Falls, Jones Falls, and more 5-1-2010

After my last trip to Elk Falls (Big Falls) and Jones Falls on 4-18-10 without my good camera which ended up with inferior pics, I was determined to go back as soon as I could and hopefully on a cloudy day. That day finally came this past Saturday and although it wasn’t as cloudy as I would have liked it to be, the sun was not as intense as before so I was able to get better pics. It was unusually hot as a major storm front that was causing unprecedented flooding in the Nashville area was pumping the hot gulf air into our area. Bol’Dar did not attend this waterfall frenzy hike so my girlfriend Linda, and Daisy the dog decided to accompany me. After a fairly early start of 10 ish AM, we arrived at Elk River Falls around 11 AM. The first thing we seen was two anglers proudly toting some very nice trout they had caught that morning. Oh how I wish I would be having that for lunch! The next interesting thing we saw was a Copperhead snake hunting around in the flood debris at the base of the falls near some butterflies. It was the same place my son Tyler had walked all over on our last trip !

Elk River Falls (Big Falls)

Elk River Falls (Big Falls)

The sun was a bit bright so after a short time there we made our way on the woods trail from the base of the falls and came out on the old road that takes you to the Elk River Trail. From there you can soon find the spur trail that heads up the hollow where the water from Jones falls comes out which quickly takes you up to the Appalachian Trail. Going left (Southbound on the trail) will soon take you up the hill eventually to the side trail (100 ft) to the Jones Falls. There is a sign there. We ate our lunch snacks there as it was 12 noonish already and I took various photos as the clouds would come and go. Still too bright and with no filters it was hard to get what I wanted but they turned out way better than my first trip here.

Jones Falls

We met several people here including ‘Bear Charmer‘ (lady in light green shirt) and her group who knew exactly what “Hairnt” meant as we soon found out we had some very close mutual friends: Jonny Bluegrass, his wife Mary, and Pawpaw, who are some of our closest hiker trash friends. The trail somehow makes this world seem much smaller at times. There was also another cool guy there taking pictures with a nice Pentax camera, who let me use his CPF filter to hold in front of my camera (which does not have a detachable lens) which worked pretty good despite the fact that I had been told previously that this was not possible. I climbed to the upper part of the falls and waited on the clouds to come and go trying to get what pics I could before we headed back down the A.T. to where it overlaps the Elk River Trail.

Jones Falls

My plan was to go Northbound on the trail and hopefully find Splash Dam Falls that I forgot about on our last trip here when we got sidetracked finding the upper Jones Falls and ended up practicing our map skills and finding a short cut back to the car ! This time we followed the trail beside the river through a beautiful grassy valley that used to be the old Jack Hicks farm before the government took it over.

Tree along A.T./Elk River trail

There are several very nice campsites (you will see the signs) and it was only about a mile before the trail went back into the woods, crossing another creek and slowly traversing the ridge where I knew the falls had to be. It did not take long before we heard them. They are loud as the river funnels into a 4 foot wide crevice which are the Splash Dam Falls.

Splash Dam Falls

There are no signs, or obvious trails and of course I do not own a GPS, but if you have some map skills and look and listen closely, you can find the short trail that leads down to a trashed out camp/party spot and then on to the falls. You can climb down the rocks on the left side of the falls but in order to get good pics you will have to find the hidden ninja trail over the left side cliffs and find your way down to the river to get the best angle. There are huge rock cliffs there to climb down in order to get there along with some with cave-like dwellings that made me wonder what creature may live in them although I am sure I  did not really want to find out !

Splash Dam Falls

Waiting for the clouds to come and go so I could get some usable pics, we spent some time here until around 3:30 PM before we made our back up to the A.T. There was not enough time nor energy left to go another half mile or mile to the new Mountaineer shelter and waterfalls so that will have to wait until another time. The way I see it, it’s just another reason to come back. It was really hot and humid and despite drinking plenty of water, I was feeling dehydrated and drained of energy so we took our time going back but made it the 2 miles to the Elk River falls by around 5 PM. It was becoming more cloudy and hearing some thunder, I stopped to take some more photos of those falls before heading home. We could see rains on Hump mountain and we ended up driving into them on the way home. It was all in all a very nice day of hiking, wildflowers, and waterfalls.

wildflowers

Check out our Photo Gallery for all the new pics of these falls.