BETTER HEAD BACK TO TENNESSEE, JED
Christy and I spent last weekend in the Boone area. We decided to hike on Sunday. After a hearty breakfast at the Boone Bagelry, it was time to pick a destination. It was a foggy, cloudy morning, so a valley hike seemed in order. I’d never been to Gentry Falls, so we decided to head towards East Tennessee.
We drove through Mountain City and up to the settlement of Laurel Bloomery. From there, we followed the directions to Gentry Creek and Rogers Ridge. We reached the first parking area, for Rogers Ridge, and found a circus of horses, riders, trucks, and trailers. I wasn’t sure I wanted to navigate through all of that to park, so we continued up the road. This was a mistake. The guidebook described the route to the second parking area as rough but passable. This was technically correct, but it was no place for a Toyota Corolla. The road was so narrow that we were brushing through branches on both sides of the car. By the time I decided I didn’t want to be there, it was impossible to turn around. We continued up the rocky road, praying that we wouldn’t loose anything vital off the bottom of the car.
We pulled into a parking spot near the end of the road. The spot turned out to be littered with windshield glass, which was alarming for a number of reasons. At least the tires didn’t seem to be loosing air.
The trailhead was marked, and we followed an old railroad grade upstream. The trail was easy, except for the numerous creek crossings. We counted 17 over the 2.5 miles to the falls. Most were easy rock hops, but a few were tricky, and one even had a makeshift bridge. I made it dry, but Christy dunked her boots about halfway there.
We reached the falls at the base of a steep gorge in time for lunch. The waterfall is very scenic. It features 2 levels, each about 30’ high. The top portion is mostly hidden from the base. However, I found a great view of the entire falls from the top of a huge boulder.
After lunch we decided to turn our hike into an adventure. Well, I decided, and somehow talked Christy into agreeing. We climbed straight up the left side near the falls. Then we crossed the creek just above the top of the lower falls. From here we had a great close-up view of the upper falls and pool. Then we climbed the right side of the upper falls, which was quite exciting. Saucony wanted nothing to do with one particularly treacherous spot. We spent 5 minutes trying to coax her up. Finally, she took off up a sheer, rhododendron covered hillside and joined us at the top a minute later. I wish I could do that!
We rejoined the trail at the top of the falls. We continued upstream, and crossed the creek 2 more times. After a few minutes, we reached Gilbert Branch and the remains of an old cabin. My guidebook suggested that an old grade descended Gilbert Branch, crossed the creek, and climbed up to Rogers Ridge. Our plan had been to follow this old route up to Rogers Ridge and loop back on the ridge trail. The old grade was obvious along Gilbert Branch, but was not to be found on the opposite side. I scouted the hillside, without any luck. We didn’t want to return the same way, so we decided to bushwhack. We crossed the creek again, and headed straight up out of the gorge. It was a grunt, but the foliage wasn’t TOO thick. It was rough going, but eventually the grade lessened. Finally we reached the top of the ridge, and found the trail on the far side.
We hiked back south on the Rogers Ridge trail, which is an easy old road. To the north it crosses acres of scenic, grassy balds. We had to head back to the car though, and the southern part of the route stayed in the woods. We started down the steepest part of the descent when I wandered past my second yellow jackets nest of the summer. I took 4 or 5 stings this time, and my ankle is still swollen. My only pleasure in this is knowing that those devils are going to be dead in another week or two.
We descended steeply, and reached a fork. The old route descended more steeply to the left of the re-routed trail. I knew that it would bring us out closer to our car, so we headed that way. This was also not a great idea. We reached Gentry Creek without trouble, but had to wade across. On the far side, we found the trail heading upstream towards our parking area overgrown. So, we decided to bushwhack again, this time steeply up the rip-rap to the road we came in on. From there, it was a short walk back to the parking area. We reached the car, and were pleased the see the tires and windshield intact. However, we still had a challenging drive back down to the main road. By the time we reached pavement, nothing seemed missing, and we weren’t leaking anything. Overall, we were just glad to make it back from Tennessee with the car still in one piece. It had been another exciting adventure with total solitude. We'll be heading back to upper Gentry Creek to explore further.
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