Twin Arches

Twin Arches (Big South Fork)

Sawmill Trailhead

6/14 - 6/17/20 (2 nights)

2020 Bag nights: 14

The weather was unseasonably cool for the middle of June so I figured I would take the kids backpacking for a couple nights to somewhere new. I have spent some time on the west side of Big South Fork but very little on the east side. In addition, I had heard good things about the Twin Arches area, so our destination was settled. 

I planned out a 18ish mile loop for 3 nights with a potential bailout that would make it more like 13ish miles. This seemed reasonable since 5 mile days have not been a problem in the past (note the foreshadowing here).

As we got closer to D-Day, the weather forecast started to look a little more wet, but not so bad that I thought about bailing. 

So load up food and gear and into the car for a 2.5 hour drive. It rained the whole way down (~2.5 hours) and as we were getting close my son (9 years old) says "I don't feel good". He has a past history of car sickness, so I told him hold on, but there was nowhere to pull over. I told his older sister to give him the lunch bag and I hoped to find a pull over. Of course I found a place to pull over just as he emptied his stomach into the empty lunch bag. Once he puked he immediately felt better, but still not 100% and it was still raining. We were just a couple miles from Pickett State Park where we had got a cabin a couple years ago. I could see this ending up being the trip that made my kids hate backpacking so I stopped to see if there was a cabin available, no dice. By then the rain had stopped, so I surveyed the backseat and everyone wanted to go backpacking :)

10 minutes later we were at the trailhead. We headed down the trail towards Slave Falls and then hopefully a nice campsite before everyone got too tired. 

Slave Falls was pretty cool, but there was not a lot of water. It is likely more impressive in the spring. 

The kids were more impressed by the big rock walls on the way to the falls. 

A little farther down the trail we came to Needle Arch which made a good rest break.

And then not much later we came to a great campsite next to the creek. I thought we would make it farther, but everyone was ready to stop. The kids played in the creek for a bit and then easy dinner and bedtime as it got a little colder once the sun dropped below the ridge.

Woke up the next morning and it was a little chilly for them, somewhere in the upper 50s (I thought it was perfect). We took our time packing up and then headed down the trail towards Twin Arches. 

About 1/2 hour into our hike, my son was in the lead and he says "Bear". I did not see anything at first and assumed he saw an odd shaped log or something. I caught up to him and then came around a large tree and there was a 3ish year old black bear about 15 feet up the hill just looking at us. I was so surprised I said "Oh Shit" and told the kids to get behind me. I waved my hands and banged my hiking sticks together and the bear just looked at us. I told my kids to start talking and my oldest very calmly said "Hi Bear, go away bear" while the other two just sort of yelled. The bear looked at us for a couple more seconds and then ambled up and over the hill and out of sight. 

I was very proud of my kids for not panicking and especially for my oldest being very calm. I have repeatedly emphasized that you don't run from a dog or a bear because either one will want to chase you. Evidently, that lesson has sunk in :)

Not much later, we ran into a mom, dad and two teenage daughters who had heard that there was a bear on the trail ahead of them. They asked if we had seen it and what should they do if they saw it. I told them that the chances of them seeing it were small but do what we did and they should be fine. And then we moved down the trail. 

 

Not much later we got to a trail intersection and "Jakes Place". I suspect it was an old homestead, but all that was left was a sort of open area and these allium like flowers. 

And then we started getting interesting geology, really big rock walls and shelters. This made a good lunch spot and play area.

This is a pano attempt to capture how big a nearby shelter was. The pano makes it look deeper than it really is, but gives an idea of scale, the tree in front is about 100 feet tall and the large rock in the right foreground is about 10 feel tall.

And then we got to Twin Arches. This is the North Arch, the man in the middle provides a bit of scale. 

We climbed the stairs to the top of the arch and then followed a user trail and a short scramble to a great view. As we were climbing down we ran into the family from right after the bear encounter, they never saw a bear. 

Then check out the South Arch, again for scale, my kids are the small color blobs on the lower right. 

Interesting flowers, never seen these before.

We hiked down towards Charitt Creek Lodge (a hike in lodge in Big South Fork) and then had a decision to make. We had originally talked about 3 nights, but we had been going a lot slower than I expected. If we kept going down the trail, we were setting ourselves up for a long last day. I gave them the choice of find a campsite nearby and head to the car after 2 nights or go longer and everyone voted for 2 nights. At this point, the three of them bickering with each other was wearing me out, so two nights sounded pretty good. Not long after, we found a great site next to the creek, not far from the lodge. My son wanted a fire so I sent them off to find wood in a very picked over area. They found enough for one fire and I gave them the choice of evening or morning and everyone voted for morning. 

Here they are in PJs the next morning enjoying the warmth. My son thinks that a Buff is like a face mask :)

We packed up and climbed the steep trail to the gravel road and then a road hike of a couple miles got us back to the car. To pass the time, we played a new game where I was the genie granting them each three wishes, but I twisted it around so their wishes did not work out the way they expected (think King Midas and everything he touches turns to gold, including his daughter). So a box of Twinkies exploded in their faces, the flying dragon choose to feed on the neighbors, the flying car need special fuel. My oldest liked trying to outsmart the genie, but my son hated not getting his way :) Oh well, it made the couple miles go by quickly. 

This ended up being a standard "not what I planned, but still good trip". Most importantly, all three kids had fun and want to go backpacking again.

O&W Trail

Big South Fork (TN)
9/2 - 9/4/17 (2 nights)
2017 bag nights: 26
Miles hiked: ~30
Animals: 1 bear, 1 snake and what felt like 1 million horses and riders and I'm pretty sure I saw a cougar aka mountain lion
Trailhead: Leatherwood Ford

I had been planning on a three night backpacking trip over Labor Day weekend since there was no soccer and then the remnants of Hurricane Harvey came through the southeast and ruined those plans. The weather forecast ended up improving for Sunday and Monday and my wife said go, so I went.

I've been curious about the O&W Trail in Big South Fork for a couple of years so I decided that would be a good place to go.

It was supposed to rain most of Saturday but stop around 5, so I was in no hurry to get to the trailhead. The forecast was right, the rain finished up about 4, I headed down the trail at exactly 5. I planned on hiking for a couple hours and see what happened.

It was pretty wet and gray, so I did not take many photos the first day.

 The O&W railroad bridge

View from the bridge

The O&W road ends at White Oak Creek, the trail is on the other side. The water was up to my shorts and was moving pretty quickly, I almost fell at one point, but caught myself on a rock just below the surface and only ended up with one shoulder getting wet. 

About 7 I found a good site to hang my hammock with a nice view of the creek.
Not a bad place to enjoy dinner and a little bourbon

Home for the night

I woke to a gorgeous day, took my time with breakfast and packing up and then headed down the trail. Parts of the trail were great, it is an old railroad bed, so easy walking next to a bubbling creek ...

... and parts of the trails are a giant mud pit. I was puzzled why I was seeing so many horse prints over on the far side of the trail. I know why my wife wants to walk around the mud, but I could not figure out why a horseback rider would try to keep the horse from getting muddy. Later in the day, a woman said, as she was forced to ride her horse in the middle of the mud to go around me, "my horse doesn't like getting his feet wet" :o What the hell? I wanted to tell her that she need to train her horse better, not to mention the trail she was riding had many creek crossings. So now I have another reason to hate horseback riders, first the garbage and second, destroying trails. 

 Fungus covered tree

The trail parallels the creek, when it was a mudpit, it was great hiking.

 The trail goes through a couple creeks, not very deep, easy to cross. but my feet and shoes never dried

White Oak Creek

My plan was to walk to Zenith (one of the old stops on the rail line) about 6 miles down the trail and then turn around and climb up to the East Laurel Overlook. I was hoping there would be a place to hang a hammock and then I could do some astro-photography.

A nice place for lunch. The concrete in the water is the ford at Zenith.

Cool fungus

As I got to the top of the ridge, 6 people were getting off horses to walk out to the overlook. Since I was not on a horse, it was like I was invisible. I enjoyed the view for a bit and then as I put my pack on, they decided that they were done as well. I thought about dropping my pack and hanging out since they were leaving, but it was pretty warm in the sun.

View from East Laurel Overlook

Cool rockhouse below the overlook

I then headed towards the Leatherwood Overlook.

There is a very large clearing on top of the ridge, I suspect the park service mows it for hunting. From the map, I thought the path to the overlook should be at the top of the trail, i.e. through the clearing. But, after following the jeep trail for a bit and checking my location on gps, it was obvious I was on the wrong path. So I turned around and headed back to the obvious trail.

About 20 minutes after I took this photo, I spooked a bear.

It turned out the Nat Geo map was a little misleading, but I eventually found the trail to the overlook. The trail is actually a pretty good gravel road, so I got worried about other people (idiots) being out there. A father and son passed me in a pickup and there were a couple people camping in the trees, but at the end of the road, there was no one.

View from the Overlook, looking down at Leatherwood Ford (bridge in the distance).

There was no where at the overlook to hang a hammock, so I headed back up the trail to the end of the road.

Dinner, bourbon and a nice sunset.

The road passes through another large mowed area, so I was hopefully that I would get lots of stars. I had forgot about the moon...

... almost full moon rising to ruin my planned star photos

I took a couple photos while waiting for it to get dark. I realized that the moon was sitting right over the Milky Way, so that was out, but maybe a nice polar star trails with the moon lighting up the foreground.

 Big Dipper

I noticed that the photos were a little blurry, but I did not think it was a focus issue. I pointed at the moon and got this, the lens was covered in dew. I took this as a sign and went to bed :)

I woke up the next morning at exactly 7 and realized that I had time to walk the 1/2 mile back to the overlook for sunrise.

While waiting for my water to heat up, I took a bunch of photos for panoramas

After hanging out for about an hour, I headed back to pack up

Another beautiful day for hiking

As I was walking along the O&W trail, I heard a slight splash and I looked over expecting to see a deer. It was deer colored and deer sized, but then I saw a very obvious cat shaped head and a cat length tail. It jumped up out of the creek bed and disappeared into the trees on the far side of the creek. My first thought was cougar, but then realized they aren't in the SE, so I thought bobcat. But, then I realized the tail was too long and it was pretty big (deer sized) for a bobcat. After getting home I looked online and there are confirmed sightings of cougars in TN (near Nashville). Given that, I'm pretty sure it was a cougar.

View from the O&W bridge, a lot more clear today

The rapids under the bridge

The whole morning, I was thinking how great it was to have not seen any snakes. About 2 miles from my car I saw this. It was going right across the trail and I noticed it when I was about 10 feet away, so it did not startle me.

I still hate snakes. 

Got back to the car about 1, changed into dry clothes, had a beer and got on the road. The drive took a lot longer than it should have since a boat trailer overturned on I-75 and the north bound lanes were shut for a couple of hours. Other than that, the whole trip was great. But, I'm not sure I will go back to the O&W trail, there are just too many horses and riders.