After much debate, Christy, Bob, Laura, Saucony, and I decided to head to the Highlands area for MLK weekend. We were all tired of snow, so we were hoping that a more southern destination would provide better conditions.
Bob and Laura didn’t start packing until 11pm Friday night. They arrived a bit late in Brevard with who knows what in the back of the Trooper. From there, we headed to Cashiers and on to the High Hampton Inn. Our goal for the day was the summit of Chimneytops Mountain. It was a little ambitious, since the route to the top is steep, rocky, and potentially icy. Bob checked in at the front desk. I was afraid that they might not let us go up if conditions were bad. However, they let us proceed after Bob signed a waiver. If you plan to do this hike, please make sure to check in first. The hike is on private property, and they may restrict access if people continue to go up without permission. As it is, the hiking community is lucky to be able to explore this area.
We followed the signs for the trail behind the Inn. Saucony was still on a leash, and she seemed determined to pull me face first down the icy staircase leading to the frozen lake. Somehow we made it down, and crossed a slippery footbridge just below the dam. Once on the far side I let Saucony of the leash, and I’m not sure which one of us was more relieved.
We hiked up through the woods on the far side of the lake. We passed one icy area, where Bob demonstrated his new ice walkers, which slip on over his boots. They seemed to work quite well, as he walked down an icy slope without difficulty. We then continued uphill to a gap between Chimneytops and Rock Mountain. We debated our route. Should we climb Rock Mountain first and then return to Chimneytops, or just go straight to the main attraction? There was a fair amount of enthusiasm for lunch on Chimneytops, so up we went.
The trail climbed a narrow ridge, but well designed switchbacks kept it from being too steep. We passed a twice bent tree, which apparently was used by the Cherokee as a trail marker. We passed several icy patches, but ran into a real mess beside a rock wall. The trail was covered in ice, and there was a steep drop below. At that point, we decided to bypass the trail and climb the rock face to our left. This might sound like a crazy idea, but there were plenty of hand and foot holds, and only a little ice. Pretty soon we were back on the trail, but as we continued the climb I wondered how we would get back down.
After some more rock scrambling, we reached an overlook with fantastic views. We continued on though, and reached the summit a few minutes later. The views here were spectacular, with Whiteside Mountain dominating the vista. To the northeast, we could see the bare rocky mountains surrounding Panthertown Valley.
We had a nice leisurely lunch and enjoyed the surprisingly warm, sunny day. All too soon though, it was time to return. When we reached the icy area, nobody wanted to descend over the rocks. Instead we followed the trail, and were able to skirt the worst of the ice. On the way down, we passed 2 guys that were RUNNING to the top. That made me feel better – just when I thought I was crazy, I found someone that made me look sane. We warned them of the ice, but they continued on. When we reached the gap, nobody was very interested in climbing Rock Mountain. The lesson here is, if you go for the main attraction first, you can forget about the warm-ups. We’ll save Rock Mountain for another day.
We descended to the lake, and followed the lake trail back to the Inn for variety. The lake was frozen, though nobody was ready to take a shortcut across the surface. From the shore, the views of Rock Mountain were superb. We made it back to the Inn by mid-afternoon, after 4 miles of hiking and a lot of leisure. It had been a short but challenging hike, and we had only seen a couple small groups of people. Bob checked back in to let them know that we were finished. Then it was back to Cashiers to get firewood, and then on to find somewhere to camp.
CHATTOOGA
Since it was the middle of winter, our camping options in the Highlands area were pretty limited. I knew of one place though that I thought we might try. We drove down to Bullpen Road, deep into Deliverance country. We followed it to the Chattooga River. The road was muddy and hard to drive on, but got better on the far side of the bridge. We passed several trailheads that begged to be explored before we reached a primitive campground along Ammons Branch. The campground featured 4 sites, a pit toilet, and to our delight, no other campers. Since nobody was around, we split up and took 2 sites. We had a nice dinner featuring soup, quesadillas, beer, and a nice fire. We ended up enjoying the site, which was a long way from anything. The only downside was that we had to provide our own water.
Later that evening, a large pack of hunting dogs ran down the road outside of camp. We had to leash Saucony quickly. After considerable barking and chasing, the pack moved off. We had just crawled into the tent when we heard something splash through the creek nearby. Could it have been what the dogs were chasing? We’ll never know.
Late that night, I heard a voice outside my tent. "Hey, Jed". "Hey, Jed". Was I dreaming, or did I hear "Hey, Jed, there’s some of them city slickers camped right over here!" Actually, when I awoke, I realized that he was just calling for his dog. Later, 2 pickups full of good ol’ boys came riding through camp. My first fear was that they were planning to camp. We were in luck though. After a brief search for the dogs, they headed back out onto the road. Several times that night though, we heard them tearing up and down the road, still looking for their dogs.
We got up a little late that morning under overcast skies. Christy and I enjoyed an elaborate meal of breakfast burritos. By 9:30 we were on the road to the Walhalla Fish Hatchery and the trailhead. We found a parking spot at the Foothills Trail, and started our hike down the paved road to the hatchery.
After a long descent, we arrived at the hatchery and viewed the trout. We then hiked through the picnic area, passing a number of large hemlocks. We crossed a slippery footbridge over the East Fork of the Chattooga River and headed downstream. It was an easy descent, but the trail stayed up away from the river for the most part. We did get one nice view of some cliffs on the south side of the stream. Later, we passed a wall of icicles and crossed an icy patch of trail. By noon, we arrived at a junction with the Chattooga Trail near the confluence of the river. It was a beautiful area in a hemlock forest, but it showed signs of being camped on heavily. We had a quick lunch here, but didn’t linger long. It looked like it could rain at any time.
We hiked downstream, passing a number of great campsites including one with a beach. We then reached the nicest area yet, at the junction with the Spoon Auger Falls Trail. We were making good time, so we continued downstream toward the falls. Along the way, we passed a beautiful hemlock forest and some nice swimming holes. We followed a side trail which climbed steeply up to the falls. The waterfall was ok, but the low water level took away from it. However, about half of it was covered in ice, which made for a unique scene.
We returned to the river, and hiked directly out to Burrels Ford Road. We walked up the road a short ways, and then hiked down to the Burrels Ford walk-in campground. We had considered staying here, and were surprised that we didn’t see anybody camping. From the campground, we left the river following King Creek upstream. We reached the Foothills Trail, and followed a spur up toward King Creek Falls. We were nearly there when we reached a dangerous patch of ice covering the trail. There wasn’t any good way around, and Christy and I had seen it before. Bob used his ice walkers, and went ahead alone. He made it safely, and was quite impressed with the falls.
He returned at 3pm and I told everyone we still had 3.5 miles to go (actually it was more like 4). I only got icy stares from the ladies, who were about ready for camp. The next couple of miles were all uphill, and it started to rain. It was just a drizzle, but it was just enough to put on rain gear. We crossed Burrels Ford Road again, and ascended the ridge. We then climbed and descended several small knobs. Luckily the rain subsided, and we arrived back at the car a little before 5pm. I was pleased that we had managed better than 2 mph even though most of the last 4 miles were uphill.
It had been a nice hike, though long. We ended up putting in around 10 miles. Everybody was ready to head back to camp. We enjoyed a spaghetti dinner that night, with more beer and another nice fire. We had the fire so hot, nobody noticed that it was raining again until I stepped away to get a beer. That night we slept well, with no rednecks or dogs to disturb us.
WHAT ABOUT BOB?
We broke camp around 9:30 Monday morning. There wasn't a cloud in the sky as we drove up the steep, winding road through Horse Cove into Highlands. As we drove, we passed beneath the sheer rock face of Whitesides Mountain. From Highlands, we drove on to the muddy access road to Glenn Falls. When we pulled into this popular spot, there were no other cars.
Our plan was to combine two 3 mile hikes and be on the road by mid-afternoon. We started by hiking up the East Fork of Overflow Creek. We crossed a slippery log over the stream, and then rock hopped several more times. Soon though, we were climbing gradually on switchbacks toward Chinquapin Mountain. (By the way, Chinquapin is a small shrubby tree found in the eastern U.S.)
When I planned the hike, I noticed that the summit of Little Scaly was very near Chinquapin. However, my topo map didn't show any trails, so I didn't know if the route was feasible. After some climbing though, we rounded a bend to find a signed junction. Ahead was Chinquapin, and to the right was Little Scaly. After a brief discussion, we decided to head to Little Scaly afterwards.
We reached the broad summit of Chinquapin, and found a trail leading to overlook #5. We followed it, and were greeted with an outstanding view of the Blue Valley to the south. Bob paused here to change film, while the rest of us continued ahead. We stopped briefly at overlook #4, which had a similar view, before reaching the turn to overlook #3. We started down this trail, but the path began to drop steeply. The ladies weren't to enthusiastic, so I decided to scout ahead. They waited, just off of the main trail.
It was a fairly long, steep descent, but the view was worth it. I could see the Blue Valley again, but I also had a great vista of Rabun Bald in Georgia. I took a couple of photos before climbing back up. When I reached the ladies, Bob still hadn't shown up. This was odd, since I had been gone a full 10 minutes. We continued a short distance down the trail, wondering if Bob had somehow passed us. Christy and Laura were just off the trail though, so it seemed unlikely.
I scouted out to overlooks #2 and #1, which had ok views but nothing spectacular. There was no sign of Bob. We continued on the main trail, which started to descend. I suspected that it would reach the trail to Little Scaly, but I was concerned about Bob. Bob's never been one to pass up an overlook, so I figured he was probably behind us at one of the lookouts. I went back up the mountain, leaving Christy and Laura at key junctions so we wouldn't miss him.
I hiked back out to all 5 overlooks, but there was no sign of him. It was clear that he wasn't on the mountain. Either he had gone back, had gotten past us and was heading to Little Scaly, or had fallen off of a cliff. I thought he might have returned to the Little Scaly junction to wait, so I sent Laura back that way. I returned to Christy, and we continued down the trail. As I suspected, we intersected the Little Scaly trail quickly. I left Christy at the junction, and looped back to meet Laura. She was in the right place, but there was still no sign of Bob. At this point, I was becoming more certain that he had somehow gotten ahead of us. I wasn't sure though, so I left Laura at the junction. I knew if he came back this way he would have to pass this point.
I returned to Christy, who had an interesting discovery. The dog had run through what looked like a letter "B" in the mud. She had also stepped on some sticks that might have been an arrow. We weren't sure though, so we began to hike briskly toward Little Scaly. We descended to a shallow gap, and crossed a snowfield. We had seen footprints in the mud, but the ones in the snow were unmistakable. Shortly after that, we found a "Bob" scratched in the mud, along with an arrow pointing onward. We were nearing the summit when we met Bob coming back down. As it turned out, he had hiked past us while I was at overlook #3. Somehow they didn't see or hear each other, and Bob assumed he was behind us. He had headed for Little Scaly, thinking that was where we were.
Bob headed back down to meet Laura, while we continued on. With the situation under control, we were too close to the top to turn back. A short distance later, we came out of the woods and into a resort development. This came as a bit of a surprise. We could see what looked like a few houses on Little Scaly from the overlooks, but there were cottages everywhere. The trail became a paved road, and it led to a newly rebuilt lookout tower at the summit. Although we were obviously on private property, it appeared to be open to the public. We climbed to the top, where we were greeted with more fine views of the Blue Valley, Rabun Bald, Scaly Mountain, and Big Yellow Mountain. We had a quick late lunch here as we enjoyed some winter sunshine.
We returned to the parking area by the same route, but bypassed Chinquapin Mountain. We caught up with Laura and Bob in the parking lot. Christy and I decided to check out Glenn Falls, but Bob and Laura had had enough adventure for one day.
Christy and I walked down a heavily traveled trail to a guardrail and overlook at the top of the falls. The creek was icy, and it looked like a walk out beyond the railing would be fatal. We continued to descend on switchbacks, and reached the base of the upper falls a few minutes later. The view was impressive, and was enhanced by a tremendous amount of snow and ice. It could almost have been called Glenn Glacier.
From there, Christy decided to head back with the dog. I went on, searching for more scenery at the base of the middle falls. This vantage point was also impressive. I continued farther downstream, and reached the base of a 3rd, smaller falls. The trail continued, but I didn't want to keep Christy waiting. I jogged back up the switchbacks, reaching the car by 3:30. It had been quite an adventure, and I'm looking forward to returning to the area. Next time though, we'll try not to loose anybody.
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