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For the 2nd day hike of the New Year, I drove to the Nolichucky Campground and began walking into the ‘Jones Branch’ valley on Unaka Mountain. Being one of the closest access points for the Appalachian Trail, I go there quite a lot. The weather was incredibly warm for January, and the ground was quite wet from an early rain. The clouds were thick and gray. I was happy to see a bit more water in the creek than the last time I had walked up through there (it was nearly dry).

In my mind, I had sort of planned to walk out to the ‘Jones Branch Overlook’ and get a nice visual of the valley and the mountains beyond, but while I was walking up the mountain into ‘Curly Maple Gap’ I realized how unlikely catching any views from the overlook would be, as the clouds were very thick at that time. Visibility was only about a hundred yards, so I decided to stop at the shelter and have a snack break. (more…)

It was a cloudy and warm day last Saturday, so I decided to go out to ‘Sill Branch Falls’ in the Sampson Wilderness for the first hike of the new year.  Intermittent rain followed me up the wet trail toward the upper falls.  I had noticed before that the ridge that the side-trail to the falls is on had been burned a while back (presumably by the Forest Service), and now almost every evergreen tree that used to be there is now lying dead on the ground, or on top of other fallen logs.  Because of that, it was a bit difficult to navigate through there, especially since I decided to walk up the ridge to get a better view of the surrounding mountain ridges.  There are times when I like to get a different perspective on the world, I suppose, and travel off-trail, exploring new places.   I had forgotten just how tall the ridge I was climbing actually was, and surprised to discover that it is quite a bit higher in elevation than the parallel ridge that followed the ‘south fork’ of Sill Branch up onto Rich Mountain.

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