Saturday, April 30, 2022
When I woke up at dawn, a light, cool breeze was blowing into my tent. Johns Mountain was a pleasant place to camp last night and continued to be this morning. The view from the mountaintop was a nice bonus.
Knowing that partying and vandalism have happened up here in the past, Tengo Hambre and I were a little uneasy about staying here when we arrived. No problem materialized despite our concerns.
| Weather | Clear sky with temperatures from mid-50s to mid-70s |
| Trail Conditions | Long, gradual climbs and descents, some with small rocks |
| Today's Miles | 13.8 miles |
| Trip Miles | 270.5 miles |
The Pinhoti Trail is nearly 350 miles long. As we prepared to leave Johns Mountain’s summit this morning, we had less than 100 miles of the trail to finish.
We will arrive in Dalton tomorrow. It is the last town we'll pass through before the end of our hike and is by far the largest town on this trail.
If all goes according to the plan we worked out with a shuttle driver three days ago, he will drive Tengo and me from Dalton to the trail's northern terminus. From there, we will finish our hike by walking back to Dalton.
We started walking at 8:30 a.m., and moments later, we stopped at the viewing platform on the summit. The sky was too hazy to see Lookout Mountain, about 30 miles from where we stood. The mountain near Chattanooga would have been visible on a clearer day.
We picked up the trail at the summit's parking lot and followed it down the mountain. After the first eight-tenths of a mile, we came to a set of stairs. I hadn't expected these because the FarOut app's map didn’t show any stairs, and that kind of trail feature is usually labeled. Except in comments posted by hikers, there was also no mention of Keown Falls, which is where the stairs took us.
The falls were named to honor a surveyor in northwest Georgia, Gordon Keown. The rock steps led first to a viewing platform that overlooked the falls before continuing down to the water.
Tengo and I didn't stay long at the falls. The water was little more than a trickle as it fell 35 feet from a ledge and past a shallow cave. As falls go, this one was underwhelming.
From what I’ve read, the waterfall's flow is rarely more than how it appeared today, and it usually runs dry by the end of the summer.
We still had to walk another 1.5 miles to reach the bottom of the descent from Johns Mountain. The remainder of this section was well-worn by day hikers, but there weren't many here this morning.
On the way to the bottom, the trail passed through another forest cleared recently by a controlled burn. I'd lost count by now of how many burn areas I'd seen on this hike.
Burning the forest floor is an ecologically sound way to manage forests, and I’m grateful for that. I admit, however, that I grumbled about seeing so many burnt sections.
On the other hand, grumbling about poison ivy was perfectly legitimate. Quite a bit of it appeared along the trail after the burnt section.
Tengo stopped for water at Johns Creek. Local news articles from 1963 say a moonshine still used to be located on the creek before the recreation area was developed.
I probably should have stopped for water too, but I still had plenty from when I collected some last night, so I continued down the trail.
The trail passed a picnic area, then turned left onto Pocket Road. A few miles from there in the other direction was the location of a Civilian Conservation Corps camp, which operated from 1939 to 1942. The site is now used as a U.S. Forest Service campground.
We only had to walk along Pocket Road for a tenth of a mile before the trail turned to follow a gravel road. Tengo hadn't caught up to me yet when I turned at the road.
Three men carrying fishing poles passed me on their way to a parking lot, and I knew if Tengo saw them, he would stop to talk. I looked for a spot to wait for him.
The gravel road went past Pilcher's Pond. A sign posted nearby said the pond was named for Samuel Pilcher, who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War.
Pilcher's parents settled near here in 1845. He died in 1897, and it's assumed he and his parents are buried nearby in unmarked graves.
The pond's dam was constructed in 1991. It was filled with catfish, bass, and bream the following year, and opened to fishing in 1994.
I found a picnic table near the pond and stopped there to wait for Tengo. When two turkey hunters walked past me on their way to the parking lot, I figured Tengo would also stop to talk to them.
He did, but I didn't mind the wait. It gave me time to eat a snack and catch up on writing my notes for this blog post. While I waited, I heard sounds that could have been from a turkey, though they may have been decoy noises from a turkey hunter.
I only had to wait about 15 minutes before Tengo arrived. When we started walking again at 10:30 a.m., we entered another area that had been burned. Here, only one side of the trail was burnt. The trail had been used as a fire break.
There was also more poison ivy on the trail. This time it was more treacherous than any I had encountered on the Pinhoti. It extended across the trail, leaving barely enough room to pass by. I tip-toed down the trail to avoid brushing against it.
I needed water at the next creek and Tengo didn’t. He kept walking but didn't go much farther before stopping for lunch.
When I caught up to him, I discovered I had cell service. I took advantage of that to make a motel reservation for tomorrow in Dalton.
While walking down a slope approaching State Highway 136, I tripped and fell forward, almost landing on my face. This kind of fall has happened to me several times, though this one was different. I heard a snap as I started falling.
Before I hit the ground, I immediately thought I had broken my ankle. Yet when I picked myself up, I was surprised and relieved to discover my ankle didn't hurt. What I heard break must have been a stick.
The highway was at Snake Creek Gap. Union soldiers marched through here in 1864 on a mission to disrupt Confederate fighting capacity and eventually capture Atlanta.
The contingent of 24,000 men, led by Major General James B. McPherson, marched through Snake Creek Gap on May 8 and 9 of that year. They were on orders from Major General William T. Sherman to battle General Joseph E. Johnston’s army a few miles south of here near Resaca. McPherson overestimated the size of Johnston's forces, however, and withdrew.
The rest of Sherman's men arrived a few days later, and the first major battle of the Atlanta Campaign began.
The climb up the other side of Snake Creek Gap was moderately steep but didn't feel difficult to me. The first 1.1 miles from the highway went up nearly 500 feet. The trail went up the west face of a long ridge. By 4 p.m., the exposure to the afternoon sun started to make me hot and weary.
I felt better once I got to the top of the ridge. The trail continued north along it for more than three miles, and there were many wildflowers here, including creeping phlox.
White fringetrees were also on the ridge. The creamy white, fragrant flowers hung from the branches like confetti. Another name for this tree is Old Man's Beard.
There weren't many views between the trees on the ridge. The sky was so hazy that there wasn't much to see anyway.
Three campsites were marked on the FarOut app on the top of the ridge. Tengo and I agreed to stop at the last one, where the trail turned and began to descend from the ridgetop. This was also where the last water before Dalton could be found.
When I arrived at the campsite, Tengo was not there. It wasn't the first time he walked past a campsite because he failed to see it. This time was more of a problem for us, though. If we kept going, we weren't likely to find another site with water for the next 13 miles.
Tengo walked nearly a half-mile too far before realizing he'd done that. By the time I saw him, he had already turned around, but we were a quarter-mile past the campsite. We agreed we should walk back to the site.
When I went to bed tonight, the temperature was still too warm to sleep under my quilt. I had to lie on top of it until the temperature dropped enough to be comfortable.
While I waited for that to happen, I could hear traffic from Interstate Highway 75. Our campsite on Swamp Creek was about 12 trail miles from the highway but less than 2.5 miles away as a crow flies. We will cross it tomorrow on our way to Dalton.
So I went to the doctor to see what he could give me
He said, "Son, son, you've gone too far
'Cause smokin' and trippin' is all that you do"
Yeah
This trail report was published on