We did this hike on October 15, 2010.
Met Woody at 7:30 near the hiker hostel at the bottom of Amicalola Falls. We drove about an hour or so to the trailhead, and left Dirigo’s truck at Hightower Gap. We shuttled Woody’s truck to USFS 42, and began our hike around 10ish. During the car shuttle we met some army rangers preparing to do some maneuvers.
The Benton MacKaye Trail crosses over the AT a few times on this hike. The first time at about mile 1.2 of this hike and it merges with the AT for awhile. Woody tells us that these trails make a good loop for when she is out hiking by herself.
We climbed for a little while and then the BMT went straight and we went to the left and started to descend to Stover Creek Shelter. As we were approaching the side trail to the shelter we met a man who asked us to go to the stream and take our picture. We told him we were going to the shelter and he told us “to never mind” and took off. A little weird, but he did have a large camera. Maybe wanted to try it out?
We had a snack at the shelter and took off some layers as we were warming up quickly.
Stover Creek Shelter
During our hike we encounter 5 piles of bear scat. Looks like the bears are very active in this area. There was another pulley system at the shelter too. We are not use to this pulley system, we are use to the bear poles in our area. There are a lot of hemlock trees in this area.
Soft Georgia Trail
We left the shelter and crossed the stream on a log bridge and hiked a few PUD’s. Woody told us about the acorns we were slipping and sliding on, and some even were close to falling on our heads. She called them “Hicker nuts” as they are not acorns but hickory nuts.
We crossed over Stover Creek on a foot bridge and joined the BMT again. At about 4 miles we crossed another bridge which brought us into what is called the “3 Forks” area. Many campsites were in this area and lots of trucks were around as many people were out fishing in the creek. 3 creeks come together here, Stover, Chester and Long Creeks and those form the Noontootla River. We would pass over that on our ride back to Amicolola.
After crossing USFS 58, Three Forks we ascended an old road and in another mile we came to the side trail to Long Creek Falls.
Long Creek Falls
Woody had made us some PB&J sandwiches so we thought this would be a great place for lunch. Python took her boots off and we all ate lunch and relaxed. We took some pictures of the falls and chatted over lunch.
We left our lunch site and ascended the trail, and joined the Duncan Ridge trail, which can be combined for another loop. We had been hearing Woody talk about the Hickory Flats Cemetery, but apparently the trail has been re-routed and it goes around Hawk Mountain instead of up and over it. Looks like the trail came off the mountain at one point near the shelter but it was now a blue blaze.
We stopped at the Hawk Mountain Shelter and met up with the group that took our picture yesterday at Springer Mountain.
Hawk Mountain Shelter
Woody, Python and Dirigo relaxed and had a snack and Python did a few pull-ups in the shelter as there were some nice pegs to help with this.
Before we got to the shelter we passed an old Popular tree which had a very large hole at the bottom but it had new growth at the top of the tree.
Holey tree
The descent to Hightower Gap was long but not bad. When we got to the truck the army ranger gear that was parked by Dirigo’s truck was gone.
Beautiful day with great company.